Anyone going to Newark tomorrow?

Stall holders at the event on Saturday, plus a few ‘passers-by’ 😉 , were given booking forms for the summer Aeroboot / Aerojumble event that runs alongside Cockpit-Fest; if anyone else would like to receive details they can request details via a weblink in here! :eagerness:

Flying Saucer #23 – thanks for the feedback, the dry weather was an added bonus!

Ritch & Max #24 – I bet my face was a picture! I’d have still had the item re-sold though!!

Texan Tomcat #25 – hopefully the ‘attrition’ rate on the Tonka wasn’t too traumatic for the younger member of your group.

Blue_2 #26 no problem re the ‘overdue’ coffee and it’s nice to hear that the event works on so many levels!

One final observation for now – isn’t it nice to be involved in a thread with so many positive views for a change!! 🙂

Sorry for the ‘deep pockets moment’ Blue, I had intended to see you all again in the café but the behind the ropes ‘guiding duties’ soon escalated past the Ashton and on to the Auster AOP.9, Monospar and the Harvard (x2). In addition there were also some ‘Site Development’ workshop sessions at various points around the site.

I’ll see you for that coffee next time T/O; I may now be able to make the Saturday of V-force reunion, before flying off on my holidays! Wouldn’t have minded a squint at those other a/c, however as I’ve said it was nice to have a look in the Ashton, AKA the Dexian Dodo!
By the way, that FOD damaged RR Conway zero stage blade I bought off the NAM table came in handy yesterday to do a particularly fine wind-up on one of the team; I’m sure Ian will have pics up of of said wind-up in the Victor thread soon!
Cracking event as ever, all the Victor team came away happy, well done Howard and team!

Texan Tomcat #17 – it was good to catch up yesterday (nearly another case of missed spotting the forumite) and it was good to be able to show you the Ashton. Did the Tornado make it home without the loss of any other pieces?

Ritch & Max #18 – it was good to have a chat to you both and nice to let you look at the Ashton. Max needs to have a tighter hold on his Meteor bits; otherwise they’d be on the table by the Wessex! Have you managed to smuggle the manuals indoors yet?

Also I forgot to thank the seller who at the end of the event left a load of magazines and books on NAM’s Books & Magazines Table in Hangar 2 – more support for Project Panini! :eagerness:

Ha! The Tonka suffered serious attrition for the rest of the day – I think on the way back home she lost a wing and both crew punched out in the footwell! ATB and thanks again mate TT

Howard, the look on your face when you thought they had dropped off the Ashton! I can imagine you at the next trustees meeting, “I didn’t touch it, it wasn’t me!! must have been those bloody cockpiteers again!!!!” Anyway, they never left his grasp till he got them home.

Thanks again to all at NAM, a great start to the Aviation year.

And a BIG THANKS to everyone at NAM from us too! Great day out, found some nice bits, cant wait to see you all again! A dry day was most welcome wasn’t it? Cheers.

Texan Tomcat #17 – it was good to catch up yesterday (nearly another case of missed spotting the forumite) and it was good to be able to show you the Ashton. Did the Tornado make it home without the loss of any other pieces?

Ritch & Max #18 – it was good to have a chat to you both and nice to let you look at the Ashton. Max needs to have a tighter hold on his Meteor bits; otherwise they’d be on the table by the Wessex! Have you managed to smuggle the manuals indoors yet?

Also I forgot to thank the seller who at the end of the event left a load of magazines and books on NAM’s Books & Magazines Table in Hangar 2 – more support for Project Panini! :eagerness:

Mate, there were so many faces I half-recognised yesterday that I’m sure everyone thought I was rude – its me age!

Hi TT

I thought it was you we saw wondering around the stalls, and I appologise for being rude and not saying hello, but our minds where on the treasure hunt.

Yes I am guilty, I was attached to the first Electra, N356Q, when she came over to the UK. I spent many hours in far flung places with my nose glued to those same manuals, whilst the rest of the crew where holed up in some nearby hotel. They had a lot more faith in my ability than I did!! Fantastic times though!!

We may see you again soon as we are thinking about making a Bruntingthorpe comeback this year and bringing the Chippy cockpit along to some of the events. It would be nice to see you guys again.

Best wishes,
Ritch and Max.

Ha! You bought all those Electra manuals near the Wessex then Ritch! 🙂

As always, a big thank you from Max and myself. A great day as always, good to see everyone, it no feels like the year has started for us. Special thank you’s to Howard for showing us around the Ashton, having worked on DC-3, Viscount, Convair, Electra and Comet airframes amongst many others, it was very interesting to compare and see the development, a privelage and we thank you for that. And to the great lady and guy on the museum stall, who persuaded me to purchase a masive pile of Electra nostalgia at a bargain price (but my car boot is still full and Mrs B dosn’t know yet!!) to remind me of my years as a “Flying Spanner” on the great bird.

Got home yesterday and booked into the hotel for Cockpitfest, can’t wait.

Had a great time as usual – with a pal and his son – the discounted entry is the icing on the cake for us! Just a few books for me, pal bought a lovely bit of BEA signage (it was Viscount Nick!) and me a few books, caught up with a couple of forumites – said hi Alan but you were busy! Caught sight of Naylan moving at mach 3 so didnt have a chance to say hi – but thanks to HH for the look in the Ashton. Must try and get up to cockpitfest – need some Hunter intake FOD boards!

Bargain of the day Monogram US Navy markings book for less than a fiver. Also a copy of Gunstons’ ‘Back to the Drawing Board’ for £2, which when read, will be pinged to at least 2 mates then lobbed in the Museum sales box for…£2!

🙂

TT

Mike J #13 – as far as I’m aware I didn’t speak with you yesterday but thank you for your comments. If you are able to make it back to Newark another time please let me know and I’ll try to let you have a closer look at the Monospar.

After yesterday’s interest in the behind the ropes viewing I may suggest that NAM investigates this type of activity again.

Air Ministry #14 – thanks you for your continued support and observations. Based on my day job (marketing, advertising, PR etc. – what a surprise!) I would venture the following personal observations.

I’m not 100% convinced that the advertising was the sole reason for the improved attendance yesterday. From talking to the shop staff they didn’t notice any increase in the number of telephone calls about people wanting to visit the event (normally a good guide), but they did notice an increase in the number of stall requests – around 10 enquiries after it sold out.

There was still a lot of peripheral publicity activity around the day: handouts using the advert format; added to NAM emails; good support from Experience Nottinghamshire (relatively new factor this time round); complementary event on the Showground; visitor levels generally in 2014 are very well up; as always is the case the normal PR channels fully explored; and the weather was dry.

As I indicated to several people that I spoke to yesterday a weblink to the event from this website http://ukga.com/aerodrome/list produced around 70 unique visitors to the NAM website in the 48 hours before the event, each with a good dwell time )low bounce rate) on the NAM website.

On the flip side (it may have increased visitors even more) the quarterly BAPC meeting at IWM Duxford was rearranged to 1st March. Meetings at that venue are always really well attended and this may have drawn some buyers away from Newark.

More event handouts could also have been distributed by the sellers (we all need to help make this event better) – I did notice that several of the sellers still had these with their site plans and passes when they checked in yesterday morning.

All that said the good turnout and general positive feedback will make it slightly easier for me to try and justify that we ought to continue with some advertising for future sales. 😉

However this will have to be carefully balanced against the capital funding costs of Project Panini i.e. the news café and education facility on the Southfield Site!

Junk Collector #15 – I presume form your comments and forum legend that we did speak yesterday and I’m sorry for the hick-up regarding the passes. This is something that we do need to sharpen up on and I have already received a few suggestions about how to do that.

Sadly the ‘unbridled urges’ from some buyers to get in as quickly as possible, and in some cases using whatever means possible has resulted in us having to become a lot stricter over the passes.

First time for me, after a mix up trying to get in, I enjoyed the day and got some little gems I was struggling to find elsewhere, saw some nice things including Vulcan, Victor and Valiant AP’s,

cold though !

Advertising pays?

Well I suppose that’s up to the N.A.M. folks to decide but from my point of view it seems to have done.

There was a definite “buzz” at opening time, and while it might have been shortlived, I had customers that I had not met before (and when you routinely attend the ‘jumbles you get to know the regulars pretty quickly, if only by sight). So a firm thanks from me to Howard and the team for listening to our pleas.

CockpitFest weekend already booked, and I may become both an exhibiter and seller this year. More anon!

I had an enjoyable time, and it was great to see the progress on the Monospar. I really must come back and take a closer look at it sometime soon.

Highlight for me was a chap selling prints of his paintings. The rather nice one of the Comet looked very familiar, and it turned out he had painted it from one of my A2As of Tom Wathen’s replica in California, which was published in the late, lamented ‘Aircraft Illustrated’ three or four years back. He’d captured Robin’s moustache and David Clark headset perfectly. 🙂

Thanks for the kind comments :eagerness: – it’s good when a ‘slightly revised plan’ comes together; plus it was good to meet several forumites. Sorry if I missed anyone!

Sorry for the ‘deep pockets moment’ Blue, I had intended to see you all again in the café but the behind the ropes ‘guiding duties’ soon escalated past the Ashton and on to the Auster AOP.9, Monospar and the Harvard (x2). In addition there were also some ‘Site Development’ workshop sessions at various points around the site.

Broadly speaking I was pleased with how things went and it was good to be part of a process that is starting to see some of NAM’s non-accessed spares making their way to other forumites / projects! Not only does it help them but it is also helping to see the ‘Project Panini’ fund raising effort progress – a fresh update will appear here early next week!

Roll on June 14th & 15th – booking forms can be requested via the website links in here! N.B. The first spaces for the outdoor event were booked yesterday!!

Just attended as a punter, not as a seller, today. Really well attended by punters and sellers alike – and the weather was great.

Thanks to Twin Otter and the Newark team, the usual welcome.

Caught up with quite a few bods and chewed the fat considerably. Bought a few nice things too. The highlight of my day was getting the parachute pack for my Mk.5 Phantom seat – still with its ‘chute, para risers, Koch fasteners and all webbing and elastics intact. Lovely. Tried to tell the wife later, got a funny look and gave up!

I’m saving my sales items until Fest in June. Quite a few nice new items for this one so I’ll do the usual pre-event list (via T.O.) on the NAM web site when the time is right. I’m still chasing greasy lumps of AGS fixings and fittings so if you have any please PM me.

A nice positive and enjoyable start to the new season. Thanks All.

Anon.

Thanks to Twin Otter and team, another well organised event, even if I did sleep late 🙁

Thanks TO for the tour of the Ashton, you’ve got your work cut out but what a project; interesting to see her progress hopefully over the coming years

regards

John