Remember the Kevin Costner film “13 Days” – the epic journey of 13 days in October of 1962 that was later termed the Cuban Missle Crisis? It’s a very good film if you’d like to check it out someday at your local video store or movie service.
One of the most critical times in the history of the planet, those 13 days have been, since then, the benchmark for how close we have come to a serious, all-out nuclear war.
But the crisis was not just the United States vs. the Soviet Union/Cuba with the rest of the world being innocent bystandards. There was at least one significant player that gets overlooked in this critical historical moment: England.
This week, the Royal Air Force (RAF) unveiled a relic from the Cold War era, a reminder of how close the world came to a cataclysmic situation. The Vulcan XH558, a bomber that was fitted with Britian’s nuclear arsenal, flew again.
For those uninitiated with English airborne weaponry, the Vulcan looks a lot like the Concorde, but with more robust lines and obviously a more military look. They were taken out of service in 1984 and were never flown again – until this week. A 14-year restoration project brought one of the big birds back to the runway and in less than a minute, it took to the skies once again.
If you’d like to see a picture of the Vulcan and read the full story, click the link below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7351628.stm
