Bristol F2b left handed prop

Please see my post on the Lightning Cockpit thread about this item, basically it says we should chip in a few bob each to get the thing hung on the wall for the cadets.

Paul

Strewth 😮

To think that my Mother’s father also cut at least one up for firewood .

It doesn’t seem to be on eBay – unless it is the one at http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WW1-British-Bristol-F-2b-fighter-aircraft-propellor-RFC-/170639092198?pt=UK_Collectables_Militaria_LE&hash=item27bae1e9e6 – although I haven’t looked at completed sales. Anyhow, if the concluding comments of that listing are correct it would seem that this propellor is worth between £3000 and £12000!

I have sympathy for your position, and I too would feel a bit miffed. It reminds me of the individual who donated his airworthy DH. 60 Moth to the Shuttleworth Collection, who sold it some years later. No doubt the reasons were valid, but somehow not quite in the spirit of the gesture.

The propeller is no doubt a beautiful and desirable item, but what it means now to present day cadets is questionable, it may as well be from the ark.

Wherever it ends up, it will be with someone who cherishes it, and the funds will go to the squadron. If it helps buy a new minibus, which enables participation in valuable, character building activities, then its legacy is real, and it will have made a difference.

The RAF of today is vastly different to the one 40 years ago, and as an ex- cadet, I have seen how much that has changed also. The history and tradition is preserved elsewhere, if you seek it out, but if they choose to let go the trappings and artifacts of last century, I suppose we have to allow them that.

It’s more a matter of principle. Along with the the cockpit, it just seem like a case of selling off the family silver, for a short term gain. Countless cadets must have enjoyed climbing in and out of that cockpit, and polishing it up :). No more though.
I left the squadron shortly after delivering the propeller, but I always had visions of it cleaned up and polished, mounted on the wall.

When I was there, we also pained a Harrier on a dividing wall, done perfectly to scale, from a drawing in Flight International.
I expect that has been long since painted over ?

When the minibus needs replacing, what happens when there is nothing else of value to sell ?
Of course I have no idea what the minibus will be used for, but unless it is to be used every week I would have thought it more economical to hire one when needed. When you take into account the running costs (including depreciation). That is unless the ATC get funding from the RAF ?

Ah well, enough nostalgia 🙁

Alan. I suspect that this always will be a problem with unconditional gifts. Whilst I appreciate that, here, it is a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, maybe the answer in the future is to offer the item on permanent loan. Unfortunately if you make an absolute gift, the recipient can do asolutely what he/she/it likes with it. But if, like the Lightning cockpit, the propellor is being sold on eBay, you might have the chance to buy it back!

I gave that propeller to the squadron in about 1969, to be hung on the wall,
and a clock mounted in it’s centre.
I would be extremely annoyed to find that it was being sold. It was purchased
by my mother’s late father, along with a a couple more like it along with a number
of struts. I think he picked them up at a London market, back in the 1930’s.

If it had to be disposed of, I would rather have seen it given to a museum or
organisation who would have appreciated it. Rather than sold off to the highest bidder.

At a specialist auction conducted by a reputable auction house. Maybe you should speak to Bonhams.