I think that this discusson is overlooking the fact that the UK is no longer producing it's own warplanes.. (Thanks Maggie and co.).
All we have is a History of building them, so I think in general we're a little reluctant to let them go. (Cue lots of 'I remember when Britain was great' type statements). It's another in a long line of British engineering projects that get re-hashed/restored simply out of a long lost national pride in building stuff.
Whatever the motivation the Vulcan as an Aircraft is worth seeing when it flies. I think that the aviation/air show world is better off having a flying vulcan than not having one, if only so that people get to see it. If people wanna donate that's fine. The fact that it's a nuclear bomber is irrelevant to me, after all, all warplanes were designed to kill and if you start arguing that one type of killing is better/worse than another than you're morally lost.
It's more about herritage and lost industry than the celebration of a bomber designed to wipe cities off the map.
Old warplanes are all, without exception, money pits. To say that spending 4.5 million on the Vulcan is a waste of money is entirely subjective. It totally depends on if you think it's worth it. Some do some don't, ce la vie.
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