Vulcan XH558 to fly into 2014 as next phase of Operation 2015 approved
Trustees decide to go-ahead with Operation 2015 – the engineering solution to enable two more flying seasons.
In a conference call convened on Wednesday, the Board of Trustees agreed that the superb public response to the £400,000 pledge appeal has provided more than sufficient confidence that the funds for the costs of XH558's winter service and the flying life extension programme will be available.
This resulted in the decision to proceed with requesting that the pledges now be redeemed and that work on the engineering programme can now commence at full speed.
You might be aware that certain time-critical elements had already been commenced earlier this year, leaving us in a strong position to start in earnest when the funding became available. We will now press on, on the assumption that the pledged funds will be with us over the coming weeks.
Robert Pleming, Trust Chief Executive writes:
On behalf of the entire Vulcan to the Sky team, I would like to thank most sincerely everyone who has made a pledge in support of Operation 2015, which will keep XH558 flying on for next year and beyond.
Because of the strength of your support, the Trustees have agreed that we should now call-in the pledges that will allow XH558, the last all-British large jet, an inspirational symbol of technical and military achievement from a remarkable era in our history, to be prepared for a full display programme in 2014, with enough aircraft life to take us through 2015 as well.
Details of how to honour pledge commitments will be published in Tuesday's newsletter.
We will need to contact everyone personally with details of their pledge and the options on how to honour it. We have set up a process to do this efficiently and to minimise delays and errors, and we are now making the final preparations to start. The vast majority of those who pledged provided us with an email address for ease of contact whilst the remainder will be contacted by post.
May I please ask you to honour your commitment as soon as we contact you? Please only use the payment processes that we will tell you about soon, so that we are able to correctly assign your payment to you pledge and allocate your appropriate rewards.
£415,644 - 2013 Season Funding.
£412,247 - Operation 2015 Pledges.
As of 8th November 2013
Newsletter:
http://mxm.mxmfb.com/rsps/wlnk/c/1216/r/26526/e/550£416,472 - 2013 Season Funding.
£414,820 - Operation 2015 Pledges.
As of 12th November 2013
Newsletter:
http://mxm.mxmfb.com/rsps/wlnk/c/1216/r/26526/e/551Extract from the newsletter.
Today will be our last update to the 2013 Season and Operation 2015 gauges. Both have exceeded their targets for which again, we thank you all most sincerely, because it means that XH558 will fly on.
On Friday our homepage display will monitor the percentage of funds from the redeemed pledges as the payments are received. These will be reported every time we issue a newsletter until such time as no further pledge payments are forthcoming - our target is obviously 100%!