XH558 and preservation
When the RAF retired the Vulcan in 1984, it did not retire the idea of the Vulcan. A handful of airframes became gate guardians. Others went to museums. One, XH558, eventually flew again in civilian hands. That restoration — expensive, noisy, and finite — is why a generation who never saw a V-Force scramble still knows the shape of a delta in a British sky.
XH558, the last flyer
XH558 was a B.2 that served, among other units, with the Waddington wing. After retirement it displayed with the RAF’s Vulcan Display Flight until 1992, then spent years on the ground before a charitable trust returned it to flight in 2007. Display seasons from 2008 to 2015 made it, briefly, the only flying Vulcan in the world. The last flight was 28 October 2015. Technical reality, not lack of affection, ended the programme: engines, spares, and the economics of keeping a 1960s bomber airworthy without a military supply chain.
XH558 now lives at Doncaster Sheffield’s former airport site with the Vulcan to the Sky Trust. It does not fly. It is still the most famous serial on this list, and the airframe most people mean when they say “the Vulcan.”
Airframes that still move
Two other B.2s are maintained as taxiing aircraft: XL426 with the Vulcan Restoration Trust at Southend, and XM655 at Wellesbourne. They will not go back into the air. They will, on planned days, run engines and roll — which is more of a Vulcan than a static exhibit can offer, and less than XH558 once gave. For visitor practicalities see Where to see a Vulcan.
Gate guardians and museums
XM607, the Black Buck 1 aircraft, stands at RAF Waddington. It is the mission made visible: a bomber that went to war with conventional bombs after a lifetime of practising nuclear ones. Other complete or near-complete airframes are displayed at the RAF Museum sites, IWM Duxford, East Fortune, Cosford, Newark, Norwich, Solway, the Midland Air Museum, Avro Heritage at Woodford, and several more. Serials move, restorations stall, and a list goes stale; the guide page is the place to start before you set a sat-nav.
What preservation cannot save
A parked Vulcan is a sculpture of a radar system. The H2S, the TFR, the Red Steer and the AEO’s jammers are either stripped, inert, or interpreted with a label. The living version of that story is on this site’s radar pages, not in a cockpit you may or may not be allowed to enter. Go and see the aeroplane anyway. Then read what the crew were looking at in the dark.