What name did Avro want for the Vulcan?

Short answer

"Ottawa". Avro strongly recommended that name, in honour of the company's ties to Avro Canada; Flight magazine proposed "Albion". In the end, the Chief of the Air Staff's preference for a V-named bomber series won out, and the aircraft was called Vulcan.

Published: October 22, 2026 · Updated: October 22, 2026 · Edited by Above Ten Thousand · Editorial policy

Avro 707s and Vulcans Farnborough 1953RuthAS (CC BY), vía commons

A bomber without a name

After the Avro 698 appeared at the 1952 Farnborough air show, the aircraft's final name became a matter of speculation. RAF bombers had traditionally been named after inland cities of the British Commonwealth or towns linked to industry.

The proposals

Avro strongly recommended the name Ottawa, in honour of the company's relationship with Avro Canada. The weekly magazine Flight, for its part, suggested Albion, after rejecting Avenger, Apollo, and Assegai. None of those ideas went anywhere.

The V series

The Chief of the Air Staff preferred a class of bombers with names starting with V, and that was the option that prevailed. The following month it was announced that the 698 would be called Vulcan, after the Roman god of fire and destruction. The name fit with the other two aircraft born from the same programme, the Vickers Valiant and the Handley Page Victor, and the three became known as the V bombers.

The Vulcan changed its designation once more: from July 1963 it was officially renamed Hawker Siddeley Vulcan, although for almost everyone it remained the Avro Vulcan.

The aircraft originated from the British Ministry of Supply's B.35/46 specification. The first prototype flew on 30 August 1952, and the RAF received its first Vulcan B.1 in September 1956. Deliveries of the much-improved Vulcan B.2 began in 1960, and the last example reached the RAF in January 1965. In the mid-1960s, after the Skybolt missile was cancelled in November 1962, the RAF began using it with low-level tactics.