Readers letters
Mr. Griffith's view that the government should fund the Vulcan project (Letters 2012) is wrong.
My view will be received as heresy by him and many others, but I feel it's time the Vulcan was retired for good.
Those who annually seek the funds to keep it airborne are facing a Sisyphean task. This in itself may not be reason to give up, but I believe there are few good arguments why it shouldn't be consigned to a museum.
The Vulcan is symbolic of a dark age in human history; It's a weapon of mass destruction. We should respect it and the role it played, but not honour it in the same way we do the Spitfire and the Hurricane, which helped to liberate this country, Europe and the rest of the world. The Vulcan doesn't need to fly to remind us of how primitive we can be.
Like many of my generation and the one before, I am nostalgic for the airshows where the Vulcan was the noisy star-turn. However, I do not feel my young sons or their contemporaries will be inspired by the Vulcan 10-years from now, assuming it does continue to display. I also do not believe it motivates young men and women under-graduates of today to become engineers, any more than vintage motor cars do.
The pleasures we get from watching the Vulcan fly are visceral, rather than intellectual. Future generations of engineers will be inspired by new technology and the challenge of solving our most pressing problems. I'm sure they will eventually see the Vulcan as a gas-guzzling relic of the oil age; one that is too expensive and too polluting to maintain. It should not be kept airbourne with public money.
I understand and agree with Mr. Griffith's general assertion that we should recognise and celebrate our engineering heritage, just as we do with the arts and architecture, but he, like all of us who love the sights and sounds of the Vulcan, should be wary of expensive and foolish sentimentalism.
Matt Bailey, Norfolk
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