Avro Vulcan B.2A XL360 'City of Coventry' at Midland Air Museum; museum volunteer and expert Ivor and I are discussing the relatively cramped conditions in the cockpit! Unusually for a heavy bomber, the Vulcan employed a 'fighter-style' control column, and what's even more remarkable - Sir Roy Chadwick and his team produced thos design only eleven years after the flight of that other great Avro machine, the Lancaster! XL360 herself served on that most famous of former Lancaster squadrons - 617.

The rear crew positions of the Avro Vulcan - inside 'City of Coventry' at Midland Air Museum, with volunteer and subject matter expert Ivor kindly talking me through the detail. Unlike the pilot and co-pilot, the escape route for the Nav Radar, Nav Plotter and AEO was to descend and exit through the crew access hatch. Sadly this meant there was more than one occasion on which the pilots escaped via their ejection seats, while the rear crew were not so fortunate. #coldwar #ColdWarHistory #avro #v

Tomorrow marks 85 years since St. Michael’s Cathedral was bombed during the Coventry Blitz. Here are some of the final images of what the inside of the Cathedral looked before being destroyed. The shell of the Cathedral remains as the Ruins standing side by side the New Cathedral that opened in 1962 to remind us of our human capacity both to destroy and reach out to our enemies in reconciliation. Tomorrow we honour the lives lost tragically on 14th November 1940 while reaffirming our city’s mess