Duxford Spring airshow 17 May 2009

Sally B should be flying as well if all goes well.
http://www.sallyb.org.uk/index.php?_a=viewDoc&docId=16

Very nice of Duxford to arrange an airshow just for my birthday. 😀

Peter

Love to see Guy Westgates second display – the one in the Pawnee tug. I knew crop sprayers had to be a biit agile but an aerobatic Pawnee should be worth a look!
It always seems to me that many of our major aviation museums deliberately avoid employing anyone who has the slightest interest in Historic aviation. It seems that attendants are usually chosen on their previous experience as a security guard and shop staff and managers are chosen solely on their previous retail experience. The general attitude seems to be that when it comes to prospective employees enthusiasts should be treated like plague victims as they are unlikely to understand the commercial aspects of operating a museum.
Having had 25 years experience in retailing motorsport and aviaton kits, scale models and memorabilia in several locations including a major shopping centre and a well known race circuit I feel I am able to strike a balance between the stock an enthusiast would like to see in a shop and the stock needed to generate sales from the casual visitor but have found any enquiries I make about jobs in the museum industry where I feel my experience may be of use usually result in a response close to total panic and it is made quite clear that enthusiasts are not welcome as employees.
I can only assume that many of these experienced marketing people feel that someone with good product knowledge may turn out to be a threat to their job so the threat is best avoided by ensuring that I don’t get as much as a sniff of any job opportunity.
I visited the Science Museum a few weeks ago and spent some time in the Air Gallery. I was stopped by a man and his young son. The father didn’t know a Spitfire from a Hurricane and after a couple of minutes chat he went away much happier after I had explained the obvious differences in simple terms (pointy wings on the Spit etc). I can’t have bored them too much as they both went away smiling but I was a bit surprised that he felt more able to ask me rather than the 2 or 3 attendants in uniform who were around in the gallery. It was a pleasure to see the smile on their faces after I had spent a couple of minutes talking to them and I really felt I had contributed a little to making their day a bit more enjoyable.

Sounds fairly interesting!

Not wanting to be picky, but the Museum’s advertising people really ought to let someone with some historic avaition knowledge check their output! Or better still, employ someone who knows how Captain de Havilland spelt his name, or that there were other training aeroplanes before the Tiger Moth!;)