A career in historic aviation?

RE: A career in historic aviation?

OOPS! Well F### me! I had no idea Mr.Dale of Pulp Fiction theme tune fame had such a rude name!

Love & Kisses

Anne

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Hello Ant.

As someone who has turned their hobby into their career I thought it would be only fair to point out a few home truths, (come on John, get ##### Dale to do his intro thing) about what may lie ahead.

(1) You will have no money! You WILL be rather poorly paid. I’m not saying you will be on the bread line but you will find that most of your friends, (i.e. people of a similar age and academic qualifications) will be earning 10K more than you and the gap will widen as time goes on.

(2) You may be spending a lot of your time working on projects you have little or no interest in. I for one do not get turned on by pillowslips or medical instruments but have had to spend a lot of my time dealing with such objects.

(3) Be prepared to be frustrated. No matter how may time you come up with bright ideas you will find that a lack of cash will always put pay to them. It is unbelievable the amount of money is involved in this business once you get past the collector stage.

(4) Be prepared for you and your partner to move. I had move over 400 miles for my job but that’s what happens when you live in Scotland and no one else will pay you for knowing lots of sad facts about aircraft.

As for getting in to the business all I can say is volunteer for everything. I got into a rather well known aviation museum on the grounds of, (A) I knew my subject. Although five years on it scares me how little I did know and…(B) I had Two years museum experience. Both of these years were with spent working for £10 more than income support wages but at least they made up for the fact I had only had 6 ‘O’ levels and 4 highers and had no university degree.

I hope this hasn’t put you in too much of a downer.

Lots of love

Anne

P.S. Ashley…Are you a conservator…If so do you know a good supplier of microcrystalline wax?

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Hello! Just got into this website & just what I was looking for. Your interest in historic aviation for some fun & a career & what aviation is all about in preserving aircraft that still fly & tell the real story! In case this might help,our organization,the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation from Toms River NJ located about 40 miles north of Atlantic City is preserving in flying condition,2 RARE classic proptransports of yesteryear,as flying museums. Our C-54 Skymaster has been on tour to Europe & BERLIN & back to USA in 1998. The latest project now is getting our C-97(377)STRAT ready as a Flying Museum of “COLD WAR”History. The big Boeing STRAT now rests in the hangar in Brooklyn NYC. See us at new site for more info & pics at www.spiritoffreedom.org “Help Keep M Flying” Regards,Jim Reed:Dir.BAHF

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Damien,
How very thoughtful of you, you’re right I am a family man who is getting on a bit and really did not ought to put myself at risk.
Therefore I’ll get my Horlicks, curl up in my chair and dream about this hypothetical job and how much i would enjoy running around after you.

Phil

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Damien.
Love the concept, however not overly keen on the ‘you kill em’ bit, maybe you could take responsibility for that bit as I did kick this job spec off. I am however more that happy to share the photographic side with you, if fact i would go further than share, you could have 75% of it ,ie, planning the shoots,getting the right people there, ordering film, batteries , paper etc,carrying all of my gear, all of the driving and waiting with the ground crews for my return from those exclusive air to air shoots with various warbirds.You could also be responsible for arranging my flights to places like Wanaka, Oshkosh etc to follow various aircraft.
Deal ???

Phil

RE: A career in historic aviation?

~lol at Damian~…do you want names and addresses? 😉

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Phil…we have two photographers from the Photograph Archive based at Duxford who basically do the job that you described, plus the archive side of things as well…I believe they have counterparts in London who perform similar tasks down there…

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Thanks Ashley,
I know of the archive collections but that wasn’t really what I was asking about although obviously they would be connected.Is there someone at Duxford who is employed / sub- contracted to take photos of the collection,OFMC,TFC on an ongoing basis.I assume that all exhibits are periodically photographed, all restorations pictorially archived at every stage, all events recorded,the Duxford working communitiy profiled,the wider community, the site, outside/overseas trips etc etc.
Blimey – I have written the job spec, can someone now please offer it to me !!!

Phil

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Ant

I have always dreamt of doing what you wish to do. However, I do tend to agree with Ashley that unfortunately doing your dream job is not always what you wanted and can actually put you off your hobby. I suppose I find that difficult to believe especially having just completed my umpteenth trip to Duxford this year!

I am lucky in that I work in aviation and that my day job (flight test) is so different from my hobbies that I can work the balancing act.

Having said all that, when I am rich and famous, I want to establish my small collection as a museum with a small cafe, shop and conference room perhaps with a B&B and run preservation courses!

Why don’t you try volunteering at Brooklands…they are a museum that is going places and would be reasonably easy to commute to from your home. They also may have paid positions…..good luck anyway

Tony

RE: A career in historic aviation?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 21-08-02 AT 06:05 PM (GMT)]Thank you very much for your replies folks,much appreciated 🙂 I very much understand the constraints of geographical location.I live in west London,just a short distance from Heathrow Airport.As you probably know,Heathrow isn’t exactly the hub of the historic aviation scene, and I don’t want to become a run of the mill airline engineer, besides which I’m not sure I’d have the qualifications for it,my GCSE Maths qualifications not being up to scratch (I missed a pass by half a mark-Grrrrrrrhhhhh!)Even if I retook and passed etc etc,it’s still not something I’d want to do as airliners are not really interesting to me,and there’s also the pressure of responsibility for a large number of peoples’ lives (a friend of mine was working on the South Korean Jumbo that crashed near Stanstead a few years ago the day before it crashed.Thankfully it was a frieghter version and it came down in open country,but it could all have been much worse. Although there was no evidence that his work had played any part in the accident,he says he still doesn’t like to think about it.)
Unfortunately,I don’t have a career background in aviation at all.As a matter of fact,I’m not really in anything I could call a career at the moment,which is part of the reason for me posting the queery.I’m currently unattached and don’t have any major financial responsibilities,so money isn’t too much of a concern to me.I’d be happy to sleep on the hangar floor come to think of it! I’ve always been mad keen on classic aircraft and aviation history,and I’m told that my knowledge is pretty exhaustive,so I atleast have that in my favour.What I really need is the practical experience.
With regards to volountary work,I’ve got a membership form somewhere for the Duxford Aviation Society,but the problem is transport. I’m currently a pedestrian,so I’d either have to set off a few days before I intended to be there (!!) or get public transport,which soon eats into your wallet.
Thanks again folks,I’ll keep you posted on developments.I’m sure in true Baldrick fashion I’ll think of some cunning plan in time…
Oh,and Ashley,when someone gets a job at Duxford,they don’t complain about it!! :p :p lol

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Phil…the IWM has an entire Photogragh Archive, based both here at Duxford, and in London…Like the Film and Video Archive, the Photo Archive forms part of the Collections Division, with the majority of items stored here at Duxford…if any vacancies arise I will let you know the details 🙂

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Ashley,
Just out of interest does Duxford/IWM have a resident photographer?
Phil

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Well Steve has already posted the IWM Job Vacancies link that I was going to post…it is certainly worth keeping an eye on this page as it is regularly updated with all the currently available positions at all five branches of the IWM…

As I am sure I have told/bored you all before, I decided while I was still at uni that I wanted to forge a career in an aviation museum somewhere in the country upon finishing my degree…Duxford was always my first choice as it always has been my favourite museum, and I was lucky enough to get the first job I applied for here…as my other half and I had no ties upon leaving uni (e.g. mortgage, kids at school etc) we moved up to Duxford and here we still are 🙂

One piece of advice/thought I will give you though Ant, is to consider how your own personal interest in aircraft might enhance/hinder your perfomance in a job say as Conservation Assistant in Hanger 5…I found that it is possible to love aircraft too much as far as doing the job is concerned…while I was a Museum Assistant here, I found that the Museum was ceasing to be the special place it has always been to me and was just becoming “work” (yes I know some people are never satisfied!) Now I work on the “other side of the road”, the Museum has become that “special” place again…its lovely to wander over to Hanger 3 at lunchtime and take a peek at the Breitlings or check on the progress of various restoration projects on the go…(I hope all this makes sense!)

Good luck with whatever you decide to do 🙂

Becka

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Like you, I also harbour an ambition to carve out a career in or around historic aviation, but I think it’s going to be a long, slow process, if it ever comes to fruition at all. Philo’s right when he says geography plays a big part – I’m fortunate enough to live 20 miles from Duxford, and 25 from Skysport, who have given me the opportunity to become involved, despite having no formal engineering background, as a volunteer on their Beaufighter restoration.

A lot also depends on what specific role you want to do – restoration, operations, research, administration. The IWM at Duxford have had a number of jobs advertised over the last few months, mostly to do with the exhibitions side of things. Keep checking http://www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/job_vacancies/index.htm periodically to see what comes up.

In the meantime, I’d urge you to look at volunteering to help with restoration or at an operator such as TFC. There are some horror stories floating around of volunteers who have just been used and abused, but that’s certainly not the case everywhere. Bearing in mind my relative lack of engineering knowledge, I was delighted when Tim Moore offered me the chance to help on the Beau, and I’ve learned a hell of a lot about vintage aviation from Tim in the three years that I’ve been there, so it shows that there are some very good opportunities out there. Hope that doesn’t sound too sycophantic – I’ll be in for some stick when I go there later! 🙂

Anyway, it’s a very limited view, and doubtless there are others (David / Tony / etc) who are far more experienced than I am, but I hope that helps. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to chat about it further. steve.young@ingrammicro.co.uk

RE: A career in historic aviation?

Ant,
I know what you mean, but I suppose its a combination of a few things that will allow you to fulfill this.
Your background- ie, Do you have engineering skills, Aeronautics,Avionics etc, or perhaps research/ history disciplines.
Your Geographic location- How far will you have to travel to achieve this.
Your expectations – Is it a labour of love, could you afford to take a lower income to achieve this.
This is all assuming that there is paid work in this field.
Personally i would love to get into Aviation Photo-jounalism, preferably on the historic side. Unfortunately most of these openings seem to be governed by an invisible network and setting up independantly would require some backing/investment.