Vulcan XH558, Woodford Heritage & Memories at Doncaster

Another trip out to the temporarily shuttered Doncaster Airport (now officially known as South Yorkshire Airport City)—and no, we weren't there to cut the ribbon on its grand reopening!

While the council is aiming to get commercial flights running again around 2028, I suspect they’ll hire someone with a bit more star power for the opening ceremony. Doncaster's own Louis Tomlinson is surely top of the invite list, but if he happens to turn it down, we are more than happy to step in and cut the ribbon!

Our real reason for visiting was much more personal: paying a visit to Avro Vulcan XH558.

XH558 holds a legendary place in British aviation history. As the last airworthy Avro Vulcan, its farewell flight tour around the UK in 2015 brought crowds to a standstill.

Like all Vulcans, it was built at Woodford Aerodrome in Greater Manchester—a place close to my heart since my dad worked there. As I’ve admitted before, adding a jet engine to almost anything instantly makes it 100% more interesting to me! My mum absolutely loved seeing and hearing the thunderous roar of the Vulcan in flight, so putting both my mum and dad's names onto the underside of XH558 as part of the aircraft’s remembrance campaign was a no-brainer.

Finding their names on the huge Delta wing was a bit of a challenge. The specific paint color used for the lettering blended into the dark underside camouflage depending on the light, but after a diligent hunt overhead, we spotted them.

The tour guides give you a safety briefing before letting you under the airframe, warning you specifically not to crack your head on the low-hanging structure and not to trip over the oil drip trays underneath. I managed to trip over a tray almost instantly! But since I avoided knocking myself out on the jet's underside, I'm calling a 50% success rate a win.

While seeing XH558 up close in Doncaster was brilliant, it also served as a great reminder of our local history back home. Just down the road from us sits the Avro Heritage Museum on the site of the old Woodford airfield.

A return trip to Woodford is definitely due soon. The Avro Heritage Museum houses some incredible milestone aircraft, including the rare Avro 707C—the small, one-third scale experimental aircraft built specifically to test and prove the tailless delta wing concept before full-scale Vulcan production began.

They also now house the historic Avro Shackleton that used to be displayed at Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), making it an absolute must-visit for anyone with a soft spot for post-war British aviation engineering.

Photography Notes
Location: Doncaster Airport (South Yorkshire Airport City) / Avro Heritage Museum, Woodford.
Subject: Avro Vulcan XH558 Delta Wing & Underside Lettering.
Shooting Under Large Aircraft in Hangar Light:
Expose for Dark Undersides: Indoor hangars create harsh contrast between overhead skylights and the dark belly of an aircraft. Use Spot Metering or lift your shadow tones in post-processing to reveal small details like painted names without blowing out background window light.
Use Wide Primes 24mm - 35mm: Standing directly underneath a 30-meter wingspan leaves zero room to back up. A fast wide-angle lens allows you to capture both the scale of the landing gear bay and close-up detail without excessive optical distortion.