It is certainly an amazing aircraft when you see it flying, but my memories of this type of aircraft are from a previous era, when the politicians were playing brinkmanship with nuclear weapons.
We had, for days, had news broadcasts about the Russian threat, with reports on how our early warning system would give our forces time to scramble in order to retaliate, and that how the threat was currently so serious that the Vulcans were manned 24hrs ready to respond.
This particular day was sunny, a nice day with folks out in the open air, when there was a thunderous noise, but very high up in the sky, but clearly visible, a flight of English Electric Lightnings heading eastward, and from the sound pedal to the metal.. Everyone lost interest in what they had been doing, and were looking to the skies when there was a new sound, and a flight of three Vulcans flew over and they were very low; we had never seen them so low before, and before they were out of sight there was another three and then yet another three, all heading eastwards, and malking one hell of a noise. People were really alarmed, most conviced that we really were heading to war, and possible nuclear oblivion. Later that day there were convoys of army vehicles heading up the A12, which did nothing to calm people down. Nothing happened of course, but we shall never know what was going on or how near we came then, or on other occasions. What was noticed though was that the news broadcasts made no mention of either these events or what the politicions were up to on the global scene...hmmm
