Nuclear Bombers Invade California!

Avro Vulcan Turns Over Edwards Air Force Base

Last summer, I spent some time digitizing old slides. Amongst them, were some in which RAF Vulcan bombers came and were part of the 1979 Edwards Air Force Base Air Show. For those that don't remember the Vulcan, it was Britain's last nuclear bomber. It starred as such in the James Bond thriller; Thunderball.

While I didn't think to ask at the time, I suspect that this Vulcan had no nukes on board for the air show demonstrations. Still, who says the last time the British invaded the US was during the War of 1812? PERHAPS, they were demonstrating that we should not take the movie "Canadian Bacon" to heart and mess with their Canadian colony, er, Commonwealth Partner. Is "Commonwealth Partner" the right term? We've shown the Queen's Canadian Flag on this blog before. Actually, I believe the Commonwealth has "members." Some of the members, such as Canada, are "Realms." Realms have kings or queens, with Elizabeth being the Queen of Canada. There was a minor brouhaha when Charles married Camilla, but the Canadians were ultimately OK with it since they were both too old to have more kids. And the Canadians think OUR system is odd!

Sadly, the last Vulcan flight was in October 2015. The only time the type was used in real anger was during the Falklands war, where they were used to attack ground targets as the longest range bombing missions in history at that time. That was later surpassed in Desert Storm by B-52 aircraft.