Moan moan moan

Bruce,

On the subject of names, as we might wish to become invovled in more than one aircraft as a collective perhaps we should go under a more universal title – Key Aviation perhaps?

Bruce. I like the name. It might unlock a few doors 😀

Is it worth starting a new thread once we have our ideas together? This one has served us well. Many thanks to Phillip. However ‘moan moan moan’ is not really how we want to continue. 😮

Bruce,

I can do Oct 10th. This is the same day as Duxfords Autumn airshow so we could meet there if you like. Having said that it would be nice to have a look at the potential home for the aircraft and the show might be a distraction. I will be sending Merlin70 an e-mail with my details.

On the subject of names, as we might wish to become invovled in more than one aircraft as a collective perhaps we should go under a more universal title – Key Aviation perhaps?

Comet at London Colney

Bruce et al

I’m unable to meet on the weekend proposed but am able to offer project management and Civil Engineering experience. Yeah yeah I know a Comet is not a railway, bridge, building, highway ……. but it is a structure and to move it to a new home will need project management, coordination, communication, funding, somewhere to stand in the short term and perhaps somewhere to shelter too. Funding and process management are areas I can contribute to the project. I’m ex RAF too 😉

Can interested parties send me a PM with an email address and phone number and I’ll compile a list and an initial action plan.

How does Comet XK699 Preservation Group sound?

Incidentally when I was an Air Cadet XK699 used to reside our Herts and Bucks Wing Adventure Training T2 Hangar at RAF Henlow.

Does anyone know of any aircraft in need of TLC in the Ipswich area (say within 45mins drive). I am moving to Ipswich in the near future (I hope) and will have the odd Sunday or part thereof to spare. As I’ve been involved in static restoration before (Sunderland at Duxford for those who didn’t know) I’d be happy to help on any project near to my new location.

Cheers

Willow

There was a thread a couple of months ago regarding a Vulcan in East Anglian which had the paint but needed bodies to spend time applying it.

tc

Cool!

We started our own Museum at Sywell cos we began in Aviation Archaeology and it snowballed from there – got a gang of us together…did the leg work, built the buildings….same thing with the aircraft, before I came along a couple of the guys in the syndicate worked for The Vintage Aircraft Team just to do something at the weekends involving aircraft – prior to that one of them worked for DAS as a kid and the other (A Phantom nut) saved a cockpit section and toured the shows with that…the Beech came up for sale and they decided that at £2500 it was affordable and worth doing (9 years on….however….)

Very often people say its down to cost…well I’m not sure about that its more down to whether you have the TIME and are RELIABLE!

Plenty of people have come and gone in both the aircraft and the museum cos they simply werent prepared to be reliable – i think most groups would welcome help (although some can be quite cliquey i think – including us in the early days) even if its a day a year – provided that they can rely on the person, he can be trusted etc-

I also dont think its a ‘skill’ thing – i mean when i started on the Beech i knew nowt and paintstripped and cleaned corrosion etc – not rocket science, but from there you learn how to prep for paint, assemble items, make hoses, how certain bits of kit work…even if you dont want to get your hands dirty many many groups need people with a bit of nouse in the admin department, answering correspondence, taking minutes of meetings, answering phone calls, doing research at the RAFM or Kew –

The sky is literally the limit – i mean i didnt imagine say ten years ago that i would actually KNOW or MEET people that I’ve read about in Flypast since i was a kid, never mind actually OWNING a share in warbirds (OK so the T-6 and the Beech isnt a Mustang – but I dont have that kinda budget!) and ok, its a relatively small share – but nonetheless the buzz you get when seeing your aeroplane in a magazine or someone says, nice job- or ultimately an inanimate object has life breathed into her – and without your penn’orth it wouldnt have happened, or it would have happened differently….

Sorry its something i feel passionate about !!!

All power to anyone getting involved in this hobby of ours!

😀

Ben

Can’t think of any aircraft in the area but there are a couple of aviation museums in the area, one at Parham and the other at Thorpe Abbotts. In addition there is still the idea of establishing something at Bent waters, could be worth contacting them to see what the plans are. Is Duxford not still a possibility? I used to travel there every weekend from the Ipswich area.

~ROFL at the herding cats comment~ Must remember that one…

Does anyone know of any aircraft in need of TLC in the Ipswich area (say within 45mins drive). I am moving to Ipswich in the near future (I hope) and will have the odd Sunday or part thereof to spare. As I’ve been involved in static restoration before (Sunderland at Duxford for those who didn’t know) I’d be happy to help on any project near to my new location.

Cheers

Willow

Unfortunately I’m stuck on an island in the middle of the English channel, so practical help is not that easy, but I’ll support any projects that are started in kind.

Good Luck from Oz

Sound’s like you guys have a plan now 😎 , Great ideas too, I did a LOT of paint stripping(horrible mustard looking stuff) as a teen at Essendon on two T-6s, And when the weather here in Oz warms a little and I feel up to it, I will be down at Point Cook museum helping out with what ever my body can handle, Single now days, So no nagging wife to worry about 😀 , Just to be surrounded by old planes and getting some hands on stuff after a 23 year break will Boost my Morale sky high :rolleyes: , And will take my mind off living with M.S., Atleast for a little while anyway, Good luck guys with the projects, If I ever make it to the UK, I will probably need some friendly faces to show me around your great aircraft Museums, So I may look some of you up O’k :p , Cheer’s Lads, Tally Ho! Phil. :diablo:

” There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” (Shakes,Baby)

As an aside, would it be worth having a “volunteers” sub-forum? Then anyone needing help, or willing to help could go straight there and the offers and requests won’t get lost in all of the other threads.

Just a thought, as restoration and preservation is a core interest of the forum. Some of the more hard pressed organisations might gain a few bodies, and we’d also be able to (possibly!) get a mob together to do big, important stuff if required.

Discuss??

It’ll be like herding cats, but I’ve found that if you provide food and something interesting to look at cats can be controlled!

JC

Stewart…formulate an e-mail/plan of action and I will pass it on to the necessary people (please bear in mind, that health and safety regulations/restrictions may mean that you may have to join the DAS and work under their “umbrella” so to speak)

OK, this is encouraging, but we have to ensure we are all singning from the same hymn sheet.

Like some of you others, I am time poor at present. Living in Norfolk means that I can spend less of my spare time on aircraft. Being married means I spend still less. Having a nine month old baby girl – well you get the picture!

I am away for a week next week, but would be happy to meet up with any interested parties at the museum, on Sunday October 10th, or Saturday October 9th.

The first step is to see if it is feasible, and realistic. Lets go from there. Lets not speculate further until we have discussed it.

James, you would be welcome to come along anyway – I know it would be difficult for you to allot time to such a project, but your views would be welcome.

David (Burke) – if you could come along as well – you have more experience of moving aircraft than most of us, so your input would be valuable.

Cheers for now

Bruce

Sounds like an extremly good idea. I think though you need to work along the following lines now from the start. A haphazard approach is noy going to do any one any favours. You need to come across as a professsional dedicated team or any contact with you will just be forgotten.

1) Decide on a group name and internal structure. Have a descision maker.
(already you have 3/4 suggestions in this forum of which way to go and people going off to do things)
2) Cost ?
3) Establish contacts with Lyneham and find out the gen as to what is happenning and a well placed letter of intent.
4)find her a new home (guess this should be top of the list really)
5) Get to know as much about the airframe as possible (look for help from other groups with comets ?)

All probably old hat to some of you but, we all seen projects like this drift off into oblivion through lack of direction. Its a good idea and an important airframe if your going do it do it right.

And yes i would most definatly like to get involved and will be talking to someone soon to get an idea as to cost of moving, a man who specialises in this kind of move.

would someone like me to send an e-mail to Duxford

If the ‘team so far’ could keep people abreast of developments on the Forum, then those who can’t help at the moment, or are too far or too time poor (or too poor! :D) to help and the moment can swing in when / if needed?

Bruce I was going to write exactly what you have just written 🙂

I’m up for a meet at the museum, Sundays are good for me ( not Oct 3rd ).

Anybody else interested other than me, Bruce and Merlin70 ?

I think realistically an approach to the Station Commander expressing an interest in her in the long term would receive a favourable reply. Simply put establish contacts on Lyneham first and it will pay dividends. Contact with Mod disposals isn’t always the best approach first.
As for moving a Comet I don’t really think that it’s particularily difficult – the main problem now is that the help that would have been forthcoming in the past has evaporated because of Heath and Safety and the ‘new’ air force
is now ran like a business.
Effectively the Comet would have to be fenced off and access controlled.
The process itself would be firstly to establish to what extent the RAF put her back together and work from there.
Quite an interesting project but one that needs a long term plan .

Happy to attend a meeting. Just let me know when.

The fact that the museum is a charity is of great help. As long as funds raised for the Comet project can be ring fenced, I would be prepared to expend a fair amount of effort to fill the project coffers.

tc

The Comet is owned by the RAF. It is likely that it will come up for tender in the usual way, and be an attraction for scrapmen as well as enthusiasts.

In order to begin anything now, we need to find the right people to approach at MoD to register an interest, and see if we can carry out an inspection.

Thats a start! The Museum itself is a charity, but as usual it is a poor one. One of the first things to do is to get an idea (as buccsociety has said) of how much it will cost to transport it. It has been apart before, and it is to be hoped that dismantling it again would be relatively straightforward (!!). A plan is also needed to conserve it if it gets back to the museum – a hangar may well be out of the question for an airframe of this size, which raises plenty of other questions.

If we have 2 or 3 people who are seriosuly interested, I would be happy to meet up at the museum to discuss tactics.

Thanks for the interest already shown

Bruce