Was there a passenger aircraft based on the Vulcan?

The Vulcan's delta wing seemed to offer so much internal volume and such efficiency that Avro also studied using it for civil aviation. The result was the Type 722 Atlantic, a 1952 proposal, publicly announced in June 1953, for a 120-passenger delta-wing airliner based on the Type 698. The project never went beyond paper.

It was not the only transport derivative. In 1951 Avro had proposed the Type 718, a delta-wing military transport based on the 698, able to carry 80 soldiers or 110 passengers. It would have been powered by four Bristol Olympus BOl.3 engines. It was never built either.

The family of projects based on the Vulcan was extensive. The Avro Type 732, proposed in 1956, was a supersonic development of the bomber. Later, an October 1960 proposal lengthened the forward fuselage to house six crew members, all on ejection seats and facing forward. And after the cancellation of the Skybolt missile, Avro even considered a Vulcan able to carry three Gnat fighters under the fuselage to escort itself against Soviet defenses.

None of those projects ever flew. The only Vulcan to end up in civilian hands was XH558, which after its retirement from the RAF was restored and flew in airshows until 2015 under the registration G-VLCN.

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.