An Avro Vulcan B1 nuclear strike aircraft at high altitude. The aircraft portrayed in this Flight Artworks depiction, XA898, is shown in the beautiful but sinister anti-flash white paint scheme used on the early V bombers as a way of trying to mitigate the effects of a nuclear blast on the crew.

There appears to be a popular misconception that the B1 had the straight-edged wings, and that the airframes with the kinked leading edge, like these, were B1A or B2. But most B1s looked like this and the B1A designation was about avionics – while the B2 had an altogether bigger wing.

Airframe based on Crown Copyright material used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.