The Avro Vulcan is one of my favorite planes. I've made sure I put the "Avro" bit in incase DD or Diesel get pedantic on my ass too. 

Here's the Wiki and some pics...





For those interested in 1982 and all that, 'Vulcan 607' is a very good read.

Hey, I'm a life long member of the Pedant's society. I'm just not sure if it should be Pedants' or Pedant's.

Keep up the banter, it makes me giggle.

I'm going for after the 's', seeing as we're a group of pedants, rather then me being on my own. 

That's a small plane or a really big gull!!

lol

Interesting fact for you, the Vulcan although a large bomber used fighter style controls, when introduced in the 50's surprised everyone by doing a full loop at the Farnborough airshow somethiing that no-one at the time though such a large aircraft could do.

And to follow up on snowy's original post the subject of the book Vulcan 607 is the Black Buck raids during the Falklands war, at the time the longest distance an aircraft had flown to bomb a target and back:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck

The book is a damned good read and definately recommended

The Vulcans were due to be retired and were just a few months from the scrap heap.

To make the missions viable they had to reinstate the air to air refueling rigs which had been disabled years before, including having to visit museums in places like the United States to "Borrow" the refueling probes!!!

11 Victors were required to refuel the single Vulcan on the trip there and then back again, it was carefully orchestrated but very nearly went very wrong!!!!

And this is pretty cool too:

http://www.kenmcbride.com/National-Museum-of-Flight/vulcan/

Note the fighter style controls