Only one man has operated a Harrier in private hands, and this ex-US Marine Corps aviator and test pilot could scarcely have been better-qualified
Sometimes, an historic aircraft project reaches fruition that truly leaves one thinking, ‘How on earth did that happen?’ Vulcan XH558 is, perhaps, top of that list. Its return to flight in the civilian world still, all these years later, seems an almost impossible undertaking. Today it probably wouldn’t even be started, let alone finished. The lack of support from original equipment manufacturers, withdrawal of which eventually forced the Vulcan’s grounding, would see to that.