The most impressive display I've ever seen of this aircraft was a scramble by a flight of four from one of their home bases (now Doncaster's Robin Hood airport). Four of these smoking down the runway at short interval followed by a solo display was breathtaking – the noise and power you could actually feel on the ground. Would not have liked to have been on the receiving end of a real Cold War mission. One famous anecdote from a senior Russian diplomat during the heyday of the Farnborough Air Show was that the Vulcan was the only aircraft he wished to view: "because it's the only one that can reach my home country".