Can we come up with our own RAF Museum Wish List?

to Duxford (plus the other originals) from Lambeth and substitute them with fibreglass, as they have with the P51.

When did this happen? I thought the one on the pole at the AAM was fibreglass? I understood they were looking for a real one (how about the ex-RAFM one?) but were leaving the other one in Lambeth where it belongs, with the BofB vet spitfire and the 190.

I’m a londoner and i appreciate them anyway

Jay

That may be so J Boyle, however we her in the UK do not have luxury of mega cheap fuel, we currently pay close to £4.00 gallon for ‘gas’, which i would guess is about $7.00, couple that to a real pain of a public transport system if you live in the countryside, and all of a sudden it isn’t so much fun.

Anyway, us Brits like moaning, that is why we are so great

I was there in June…and paid an obscene amount for fuel to propel a rented Vuxhall (a Euro-Chevy for my American friends) to Duxford. While visiting friends in Kent, I conned them into taking me to Manston and seeing the museums there. All it look was the promise of a free lunch. Two years previously, I rented a car to visit a friend’s auto museum in the lake district.
And the trip before that, I spent half a day touring Hendon…getting ther by underground from London does take awhile, but it’s worth it.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. 🙂

Philip, you tell me, I’m not convinced we need to preserve every piece of junk Her Majesty’s armed forces ever operated.
Andy

Simply put, ones man’s junk is another’s treasure.
Witness the people in favor of keeping all storts of inconsequential planes around, or heaven forbid, spending tons of cash to replicate them while other really deserving and historic aircraft remain extinct.
As an example, think of the many well meaning people who really want to see a Westand Whirlwind or MB-5, while the Sterling is no where to be seen.

This year, I stopped at the USAF Museum while driving through Dayton from Southeastern Pennsylvania several times. A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to get to Hendon for a couple of hours while on a business journey to Luxembourg. I believe the elapsed time for the air/tube travel to Hendon was less by an hour or so! Both trips were well worth the visit.

In essence I would rather travel 1000 miles in the U.S.A to look at some old aircraft than 100 miles in the U.K !

looks like an exchange trip is in order 🙂

J Boyle – unless you have travelled to the U.K recently you might be surprised
by the condition of the U.K transportation system! The M25 which is a major
circular road surrounding London does a very passable impression of a WalMart
car park i.e loads of cars but not going anywhere fast at some stages of the day. We then have to contend with an increasing barrage of speed camera’s
and variable speed limits which while undoubtedly reduce accidents also serve to make the speed of travel very similar to when Robin Hood inhabited
Sherwood Forest.
Add to the mix a complete lack to traffic police to help things along
and the popularity of SUV’s and ‘posh’ Land Rovers which are invariably driven by people who both cannot drive them but also have absolutely no
need for permanent four wheel drive when the heights they climb peak at a
‘sleeping policeman’.
In essence I would rather travel 1000 miles in the U.S.A to look at some old aircraft than 100 miles in the U.K !

That may be so J Boyle, however we her in the UK do not have luxury of mega cheap fuel, we currently pay close to £4.00 gallon for ‘gas’, which i would guess is about $7.00, couple that to a real pain of a public transport system if you live in the countryside, and all of a sudden it isn’t so much fun.

Anyway, us Brits like moaning, that is why we are so great

Personally at Hendon I would move out most of the choppers and put in a
C-47 as Hendon does not have a single transport aircraft.

Sure a Dakota needs to be in the RAFM, but remember, but remember most of the helicopters on display were designed and made in the UK, so they need to be there. Also, if the RAFM didn’t have them, the only place that might have the rare types woud be the Helicopter museum at Weston Super Mare (sp?).

Consider yourselves licky

I’m greatly amused by some of our UK friends who think Duxford or Hendon is too far out of the way. Here’ in the states you may be more than 1000 miles away from a proper aviation museum, and the only way to get there is by car or maybe airline…not a lot of train service over here. Imagine being a warbird crazy teenager, not being able to “pop down” to California, not to mention Dayton or the Smithsonian. Heck, I didn’t see my first B-17 until I was 21.

When I first visited the UK as a university student back in the 70s, it was easy for me to make my way to Hendon and the IMW London and The Science Museum. In my many later visits, I always manage to find time (and money) to rent a car to visit Duxford and a host of places in East Anglia.
UK warbird fans have a great concentration of great museums within a few hundred miles…consider youselves lucky. 🙂

I am over the moon that we are soon to have a Victor, Vulcan and Valiant under the same roof and positivley ecstatic that the Belfast will be coming in from the cold, and hope that one day a Hercules will join her, having spent many hours flying on them.
My dad spent many hours on Beverleys and Belfasts, and would question anyone who considers their contribution insignificant.
I would like nothing more than to see an RAF Transport Command Museum hall in the future, Belfast, Argosy, Beverley(!), Hercules, Comet, Brittania, VC10 (C1K), Hastings etc

Would be nice if they cleaned up the ex-South African Ventura and put it on display, That would free some more storage space etc.etc.

Cees

Robbo (and Mike ;)) glad to hear it, ta 🙂

I’ve come to this one a bit late, but not to worry!

My main wish is not for more aircraft, yet – It would be to ensure that the entire collection is placed undercover. All museums who display aircraft out of doors will lose one or more of them within ten years unless they have a s**t hot maintenance team, or unless they start looking at building hangars now. I include ourselves in that assessment.

Someone mentioned a Venom NF back on page 1 – they had one, and sold it to Newark. Frankly, the Venom NF series was a bit of a dead duck, and was in service for only 1-2 years. So I wouldnt bother!

I also wouldnt look at building replicas of aircraft that no longer exist. A very expensive game, and you end up with something with questionable historic value. If there is a Stirling in Russia, then lets see it preserved at the RAF Museum. If not, then lets not try to build one from nothing.

Restoring the Halifax would remove so much of the original airframe that it would be little more than a replica, again, with questionable historic value.

I do question the policy that turned the oldest Spitfire in the world into something it never was. They had a very well preserved original airframe, albeit modded to almost MkV standards. Turning back the clock and reverting it to an earlier mod state is a questionable exercise, and one that is open to too much interpretation.

One has to see these aircraft as documents in their own right – they tell their own history if you read them right. For me, that is why replicas and GRP models dont work.

David Burke tells me that there is a surviving Lockheed Lodestar that was engaged in the Ball Bearing runs to Sweden. Now that is an aircraft worthy of preservation in a national museum. I would also like to see, as has been mentioned, some of the American aircraft in RAF schemes.

Bruce

Robbo…I have not visited Hendon for about 18 months now…is the Battle still dumped behind the Lancaster, or has it been moved to a more prominent position? (I sincerely hope so!)

Philip
Ask the average person in the street if they’d like to pay more tax to preserve old aircraft–stand back while you receive the answer.
A friends young son cannot have medical treatment on the NHS for a potentially serious disability because funds apparently are not available to provide it.
If we raise taxes at all, surely it should be to include stuff like this first.
Seeing that the Tories are already hinting at Tax cuts as a potential vote winner at the next election I can’t see much chance of little Ben getting his free treatment or bigger heritage budgets.

Yes, it is Money, Money, Money–it’s what makes the World go round.
Remember Fagin?–‘In this life one thing counts, in the bank large amounts’.
I probably don’t like it anymore than you do but it’s a fact.
Cheers
Andy

Andy

I knew many years ago (through my fight to save RAF Driffield) that saving out aviation heritage is a low/no priority for those with power, and your right that the health of the nation is a priority. But I think that spending money on our aviation past is as important as spending on Opera or Ballet or our Maritime Heritage.

Then perhaps you should get out more.

😮 Handbags at twenty paces…

Do I get out enough? Do I read too many aviation magazines (Flypast and Aerodrome Monthly)? Do I have a life outside moaning about this and that?

Yes I do. I’m a picture editor and photographer for a local band-scene magazine and someone whose writing a book on the RAF Fire Service. The problem is whatever I do these days it appears I’m fighting a loosing battle.

I haven’t been to Hendon for a couple of years, and then only briefly, but I do have a comment about the cafe, if it’s where it was then. It also shows there are other views to those expressed here, although I do largely agree with most of them.

I took a couple of ex-RAF blokes from my local down to the Mossie Museum and as we had a little time to spare, we went to Hendon first, knowing it would only be a very brief visit. A few weeks earlier, one didn’t know the Museum existed at all and the other didn’t know there were any aircraft there.
The sight of two chins hitting the floor as we went through the door I will never forget.
Dougie couldn’t walk very far and I kept trying to get him to turn back but he wouldn’t stop. He made it to the cafe, which then had the Beaufort and Beaufighter next to it, I believe. He just sat there looking around, hardly able to believe his eyes. After a coffee and a break, he’d recovered enough for the walk back. He was really pleased to see the Canberra, and said “I worked on that aeroplane!” Apparently on it’s way back from the Antipodes it stopped at Singapore with an oil leak and Dougie was a very junior member of the team that fixed it and sent it on it’s way.

We intended to go back for a proper visit but sadly Dougie died last New Years Eve.

I doubt I’ll ever use the cafe again, but I was extremely grateful it was there then.

Hatton – maybe the secret of how to reach a better compromise with the Hendon helicopter display would be to acquire a Chinook! That way they could have the restaurant in the back with great access and still have a nice display!
Tongue definately in cheek ! But knowing my luck it will probably happen now I have suggested it!

Hi Andy, I’d respectfully disagree with you on this one. The Halifax at Hendon is an historical artefact. It is history alive and a powerful reminder of those crews who did not make it back. Suggesting that history can be taught solely by books/records is a strange way of thinking. Without primary sources such as these we are left with only corruptable secondary sources that leave us with a lesser understanding of the past. Are the fragments of ancient mosaic roman scrap? No, they are not. They are valuable resources from which we can learn about our past. Why do we preserve them? We preserve them to allow future generations to interpret ( seems to be in ‘in’ word 🙂 ) and study. Not simply to know they existed.

An interesting thread seems to have gone quite nasty, lets get it back on track.

best regards, steve

Steve,
if anyone ever set out to destroy the Hendon Halifax they’d have to move me first, so I don’t thing we disagree that much. I was playing devils advocate in the hope that it might make a few of our little congregation think a bit about aircraft preservation and what it involves, before they make rash statements about if they were in charge and what they’d be doing.
Sadly however a few misguided individuals decided to get personal about it.
I’m not sure we needed to preserve more than one Beverley, I do think it would have better to have the one we have got in better circumstances.
However I stick to what I said about money–It’s no good at all pretending that it doesn’t matter.
It’s also pointless pretending that there’s a crock of gold just over the next hill in the form of the HLF or Government funding.
Thanks
Andy

[QUOTE=Snapper]

But when I see about wartime hangars being demolished or scrapped it makes me wonder where they could be reused. Even if they aren’t 1940 era, a proper B52 hangar (I know nothing about that aspect btw) would be a good exhibit in its own right.

QUOTE]

Thats true Snapper. Thats admittedly something I admire Hendon for,
moving the White hanger can’t have been an easy task and for that they should be applauded. However, something they should not be applauded for is that stupid cafe in the middle of the helicopter display (I think there may be a few people here though who appreciate it’s location 😀 )