Duxford American Air Museum Moves

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Steve and Sadsack…thank you very much gentlemen…:)

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Ashley, i never realised you were female, you clearly know your stuff and thats whats important.

RE: Duxford yesterday (Sunday 24th)

It was Clive Denney flying the Harvard. It is the ex Norman Lees aircraft. It wears the RAF camouflage and KT on the side.

I believe the Nimrod was due to fly, but the weather prevented that flight from happening.

Philip.

RE: Duxford yesterday (Sunday 24th)

>What markings did the Harvard have Moggy?

UK Temperate European (Early) Matt Dark Earth / Matt Dark Brown over something light (Noy yellow if I recall it correctly.
K roundel T

Moggy

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Hear hear.

Ashley / Becka, please don’t get a complex. IMO you always come across as being eloquent, reasoned, calm, informative, and passionate about ‘your’ aircraft. And you speak with more genuine authority and obvious passion for them than many of us blokes can! 🙂

Steve

RE: Duxford yesterday (Sunday 24th)

What markings did the Harvard have Moggy?

RE: Duxford yesterday (Sunday 24th)

Had the pleasure of spending most of yesterday at a freezing cold and windswept Duxford.

(Not to mention the night before in the Red Lion at Whittlesford getting outside an unfeasibly large amount of Broadside before organising an impromptu game of Strip Pass the Pigs in the public bar – but that’s another story)

Lots of stuff going on re the move.

Almost every engineer in sight, and their dog, are working away on the B24. It was apparently not in as good a condition as had been first thought with plenty of water damage and some botched repairs in steel rather than in ‘aloominum’. They have a mid-June deadline which can’t move.

All the candidates for hoisting are being partly dismantled prior to fitting the sling points. It also looks like they are taking the opportunity to do some other maintenance / conservation before they disappear out of reach.

Nice display of gentle, low level aero’s from the Harvard that used to be shared by Tony Haigh-Thomas and Euan English. Who owns it now I wonder?

The Nimrod run up but not flown.

Heaven on earth.

Moggy

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 25-02-02 AT 12:36 PM (GMT)]”Nobody else has seemed to notice is that Duxford hasn’t got infinite room to build new hangers”…well I think more than a few people have noticed this…;)

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

I think the American Air Museum is a fine building and although I might be missing the point most hangers by there very nature have a kind of sterile atmosphere. I’m generally against hanging aircraft from the ceiling (anyone who has seen the aircraft at IWM Lambeth would see those aircraft have been “damaged” to achieve this) however I feel that this is still better than leaving them outside to rot. Lastly the a point nobody else has seemed to notice is that Duxford hasn’t got infinite room to buld new hangers. Unless you want to cover the runway or area’s used for carparking on airshow days there doesn’t appear to be anywhere where a really large new hanger where the AAM could have have gone. Anybody have a solution for this?

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

David…it will be a sad day indeed…I still hope it will not come to that, but the last I heard from the Conservation team it is a very real possibility 🙁

Neilly…thank you very much…that means a great deal to me 🙂

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Ashley,
Not wishing to get to involved, But… Ashley, you might be a girl in a male dominated etc. etc., but perhaps you should look at your ratings, because there are quite a few of us on this forum who are very interested in what you have to say.

All the very best,
Neilly

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Becka – it will be a sad day if they end up cutting her down to just a fuselage or something of that sort.
Unfortunately when she arrived at the museum the Shackleton MR.3/3 was fairly common. With the passage of time she has remained relatively intact whereas her sisters havn’t stood the test .
What we have now is the only surviving Shackleton MR.3 in the U.K which hasn’t been taken apart for road transport and the inevitable compromises that get taken to enable this to happen.
Sadly she doesn’t have the glamour of the Sunderland or Lancaster but she is a significant airframe that deserves to survive.

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Unfortunately the AAM was designed in such a way as it’s virtually impossible to extend the building at any stage in the future. I would have liked to have seen a modernised ‘blister’ type hanger design with glass panels at each end and more glass in the roof but it wasn’t to be.

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

I agree that the AAM is badly designed…I personally do not like it very much at all…it is too sterile looking for me…and I have no more desire to see aircraft suspended from the ceiling than anyone else here…it is the plan to suspend the C-47 that disturbs me most of all…both from a logistical point of view and in terms of the aircraft itself…and as for some of the aircraft they plan on suspending from the ceiling when the Hanger 1 expansion takes place well…the least said about that the better…but to me it is still the lesser of two evils to have a plane suspended from the ceiling than to have it scrapped…

It is a Catch 22 situation here at Duxford…if we keep aircraft outside they will deteriorate…and nobody wants this…but then we have the question of space…if we bring the aircraft in from the cold…where do we put them? As far as building new buildings are concerned, I am afraid I don’t think this will happen…personally I would rather scrap the Air Space project and build a new Hanger where the Hanger blown up in the Battle of Britain film was…but I’m not the Director of Duxford and I don’t have a place on the IWM Board of Trustees…

As far as the aircraft which remain outside, there are plans to restore the Victor to her former glory…conservation time has been mainly devoted to the Liberator project over the past couple of years alongside other projects such as the Anson and the York…unfortunately we cannot fix everything at once…as for the Shackleton, well I’m afraid internally she is not in such good condition as the Victor and there is still talk of ‘paring’ her down into a walkthrough aircraft…but if the option is either scrapping her entirely or salvaging part of her I know which I’d choose…

As for hands on elements…we do have the Flying Machine Exhibition at Duxford and there are plans to include many interactive elements in the Airspace Project…

This is the last I have to say on the subject…it’s not easy being a girl in a male-dominated business such as the warbird industry…sadly I don’t have the luxury of the experience of having served with the RAF or thirty years of being an enthusiast…I am lucky enough to work at Duxford and every time I drive to work and the familiar buildings appear I think how lucky I am and how proud I am to work there…and I will defend ‘my’ aircraft to the end.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone

Becka

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

While the AAM is an interesting looking building, I think it is entirely the wrong design for a museum that is supposed to attract large numbers of people for very many years into the future.
That building is completely useless in regards to extending it for new exhibits because it has been designed as a showpiece for the architects and the IWM Board, rather than a museum building with built-in potential to grow.

I would much rather the AAM had been built at an ex USAAF airfield in Norfolk or Suffolk with lots more room, in hangers that could easily be extended to accomodate more exhibits when required without hanging them from the roof. It would of course have been another aviation attraction for us all as well, and IMHO it could have stood on it’s own as a visitor attraction if it had been done properly, with visitor interaction etc.

If there was absolutely no chance that it could ever have been built elsewhere then the new building at Duxford SHOULD have been of modular construction allowing future exhibits to be displayed without cramming them in to look like a fat bloke who’s eaten one too many burgers for his own good.

I think I am right that the AAM cost £11 million to build, I’m quite sure that if the design had not been so flashy then several normal hangers could have been built for the same amount, one or two to start with and then build more as needed.
There is still a huge range of American aircraft that could be displayed in an American Air Museum In Britain, but with the current building we are never likely to see even half of them, and it is my bet that if there was room for more then many loan deals could be done with the USAFM and the USNAM for further exhibits.

Just look at this list below and see what we ain’t never likely to see at Duxford in the AAM because they built the wrong sort of building, at the most there would only ever be any room in the future for two or three single engined aircraft without it seeming like your local well-stocked model shop, as if it doesn’t already, and these are just some of the WWII types.
Some of the following are not exactly relevant to GB but then neither are a B25 or Avenger in Navy colours, a B29 in Korean War colours or a B52 in Vietnam colours etc, and all these are already in the mueum.

Wildcat
Hellcat
Bearcat
Tigercat
Corsair
Marauder
Grasshopper
Beech 18
Commando
Airacobra
Kingcobra
Lightning
Airacomet
Catalina
Bobcat
Privateer
Warhawk
Helldiver
Dauntless
Havoc
Invader
Skyraider
Bolo
Dragon
Skymaster
Argus
Cornell
Goose
Widgeon
Duck
Lodestar
Hudson
Ventura
Harpoon
Mariner
Black Widow
Recruit
Reliant
Sentinel
Kingfisher
Valiant
Hadrian
etc etc etc

When you get to the huge number of post-war types then you can see that the AAM will be failing to tell the story of the US Forces properly for ever, if that is what it is actually meant to do of course.

Museums should be able to change, grow, evolve, whatever to keep them fresh and interesting to the punters, and that includes the people who have visited before, people will not come back again if it is the same as they saw last year or ten years ago.

Change and evolution have been designed out of the current building completely, just to satisfy a few egos, so after the B24, SR71, F15 have been incarcerated that will be just about all we are ever going to see new in that building as far as I can see.

Exhibits for visitor interaction are vitally important for any museum in these technologically advanced days we live in now, and Duxford is sadly lacking in these, and I don’t just mean for the kids.

Seriously, just how much would it cost to stick a few old jets and a fibreglass Spitfire outside for people to have a very close look at, modified for safety of course ?
Or something that they could press a few buttons, twiddle a few nobs, push the pedals and move the control column to REALLY see how an aeroplane works, it would be a huge revelation for many adults let alone the kids.
A replica Spitfire or Hurricane or Messerschmitt or Mustang that those young kids could have sat in with a flying helmet and had their picture taken while firing the guns and making a huge racket would have been much more of an adventure than just looking at them behind the ropes and told not to touch or you’ll get chucked out.
Better than that mega-expensive simulator that is already at Duxford.

And when the great unwashed have worn it out you just get another one………….

TaTa
Mick

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Luckily for me Ashley I have been an enthusiast for twenty six years.
I spent eight years in the R.A.F working on Harrier GR.3/T.4/GR.5/GR.7/T.10 and then the Tornado Gr.1 and Wessex.
I have carried out maintainance on Chipmunks-Cessna’s-Stearman’s-Stampe’s-Auster’s-Beagle’s- and numerous other types of aircraft.
I support the work of maybe five or six museums actively in the U.K and a host of other projects . I am an active member of the BAPC and also a correspondent for FlyPast.
As an example of some of the work I do have a look at your cherished Harrier GR.3 in the museum ( Duxford) – I carried out a mod to her nose leg about four years ago to stop it discharging and lowering.
I do have a ‘rough’ idea of the constraint’s of operating a museum and the need to preserve your exhibits but I think the provision of barriers and signs asking people to respect the aeroplane’s is laudable is something entirely different to hoisting aircraft up in the air as a means of ‘preserving them’.
Quite simply if this was meant to be the would be provision for hoisting points built into these aircraft – the is not. Hanging them from the ceiling imposes new stress paths through these machines which would ordinarily be transmitted through the undercarriage. This doesn’t auger well for their long term preservation. As regards the ‘damage’ done by the public – a sensible balance can be achieved as is the case with the Sunderland and Beverly cockpit. Some aircraft can stand this and others cannot – I am not suggesting in any way that all the cockpits are opened to the public but machines that have
been scrapped at Duxford in the last ten years could have quite
easily have been modified to this role – Convair and Varsity for example but it was not to be.
Luckily we have the opportunity for free speach in this country
so we will either see overwelming support for the changes or the
opposite – either way I shall try and visit without prejudice.

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

David…I work in a museum…I’ve seen the damage done to exhibits over the years…

Generally I try not to make sweeping statements on this forum that I cannot back up with facts…and I am very sorry but I regard “undoubtedly the best museums in the UK are those that let people have a physical connection with the exhibits” as a sweeping statement…You do not have to get up close to and touch an aircraft to “get a connection” with the aircraft…and as for children…well one day I was in Hanger 2 and two young lads came in…they could not have been any older than 7 years old at the most…and one of them asked, “excuse me Miss, have you got any Hurricanes in here?” At the time, there were 2 Hurricanes and 2 Spits sat together, positioned Spit-Huri-Spit-Huri…and I pointed down the Hanger at these and said “there they are…now which are which?”…And these two little boys went straight to the aircraft and identified them correctly! Not too surprising for two boys who get taken to the airshows by their parents you think? Maybe, but these two understood the IMPORTANCE of these aircraft…and without touching them too…they were completely in AWE…I was very impressed and more than a little touched…

At Duxford we clearly have signs around the museum that request that people do not touch the exhibits…I support this general policy and not just as a museum employee…if people want to get up close and personal with aircraft at Duxford there are ways and means…personally I am more than happy to help people to do this and to show anyone round…and that includes people from this forum too…

And with regards to “if it was all about keeping a machine in pristine condition away from our grubby mitts, then why have Duxford got that Battle of Britain exhibition complete with pilot’s memories in photo and audio form?”…they are copies…

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree David…I guess I just see matters such as this from two perspectives…that of an enthusiast, and that of the museum, sorry

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

too rach a compromise in a dream world oth should be avalible. i mena could one not get say an old spitfire thats had parts raided from it to keep other airboren say be tarted up with replica parts so kids could sit in it. one of my most profound memories of henden when i visited when i was small was 1) walking through the sunderland and 2) sitting in some small plane. it is nice to have the other planes preserved but when i visited MAPS the resortation people near me (see that thread) i touvhed a spitfire, tried to lift a wheel , felt the wing – that touch is a very important experiance.

rabie :9

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

my 2 cents …

dunno about enginering at all but couldn’t you just make a 2 floor musem to get it all in ??? i think the AAM is the new one right so why not make it like that from the start ? (you know like a carrier with big lifts to move stuff about say ?)

rabie :9

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Ashley – I think the point most people are making is that hanging an aircraft from a ceiling can only be detrimental in terms of the effect it has on it’s structure. If it comes to a case of removing engines to keep the weight down whilst they are suspended
surely that defeats the object of preservation.
I don’t think that anyone disagree with the acquisition of machine’s like the B-24 but surely a bit more thought could be given to how they are displayed. On my last visit I found the AAM to be rather cramped – I cannot imagine what it will be like with even more aircraft in there !