Grahame-White factory closes from 3 March

I was at the museum yesterday ( well the research department) after a few hours and £60 poorer I had a quick look around the museum. I had not been since 2002, apart from the still dreadful lighting and the gloom the one thing that was immediately apparent was that I could count the visitors walking around the main hall on one hand!! There was more people working in the shop !!

I came away thinking will the museum be here in another 5 or 10 years, I hope so but given the amount of development around the museum I really doubt it………..very sad.

Rant over back to my Form 78’s. !

Steve

You have a point, but it can be overdone. Hopefully care is taken to calculate the likely effects on such airframes, but could hanging at a certain dramatic angles add to risk of distortion over time? If the attitude in which they are hung is at odds with the flying capabilities of the exhibit when “live”, it can be rather misleading to spectators. I am for example, delighted to see the following rare machine on display – but am not a fan of how it is now exhibited.

Tim

They were a bit surprised when it started dripping oil!!

…shouldn’t suffer in a warm, dry environment…

For an airframe with an organic material content (wood, natural fibre fabrics) that’s bad. I know what you meant, but a certain percentage humidity and close monitoring is required.

Of course you can ensure the airframe is completely desiccated first, but there is a corresponding loss of mechanical strength. (See the ship of Cheops, or some of the desert recovery wrecks, like Lancaster’s Avian.) At the other extreme, immersed in fresh water can have advantages…

I’ve had several museums assure me suspension by their [varied] methods is OK. Asking independent aircraft engineers with an understanding of aircraft preservation rarely gets the ringing endorsement the museum’s [almost always] technically illiterate PR dept will be assuring us.

These things are always (one hopes best) compromises, but the viewer and visitor should be aware of the compromises and support good practice and see past bull.

Regards,

The autogyro must be taking a lesson from the frankly bizarre way the Shorts SC.1 at the Science museum is suspended.

… … The other big positive about hanging a/c is that one is often able to see them close-up from angles that would not normally be viewable. … …

You have a point, but it can be overdone. Hopefully care is taken to calculate the likely effects on such airframes, but could hanging at a certain dramatic angles add to risk of distortion over time? If the attitude in which they are hung is at odds with the flying capabilities of the exhibit when “live”, it can be rather misleading to spectators. I am for example, delighted to see the following rare machine on display – but am not a fan of how it is now exhibited.

Tim

I really don’t mind aircraft being suspended, as it means more a/c can be squeezed-in so there’s more to see. It works fine as long as there is a nice elevated area to view from, such as in the big hangar at Duxford. As long as there is no permanent damage inflicted upon the airframes. As for loadings, these would normally be only a small fraction of what they were designed for. Even the more delicate airframes shouldn’t suffer in a warm, dry environment if the attachments are carefully located and the loads distributed, providing they were sound to start-off with.
The other big positive about hanging a/c is that one is often able to see them close-up from angles that would not normally be viewable. I get far more irritated by museums that are dark gloomy caverns.

Yes it has! And the Solent is now below the Ag Wagon (single prop hanging furthest away), added Skyhawk, Macchi, Devon, Dakota, Auster, and more. The restoration hangar was near empty last I was there, as the Avenger was about to go into the main hangar, and a couple of WW2 twins are moving in there from outside.

MOTAT has come along way since I was there in 1980!

Regards

re;

It seems ridiculous to have a massive aircraft stuck in store when it could either go to Cosford or be loaned to another collection.

Only the Omaka Eindekker, Taube and Se.5 reproductions are airborne- the latter needs to be to show the ‘action’ of Grid Caldwell climbing over the side….

Some of the Omaka exhibits are ‘airborne’, not sure if the one in a tree counts as ‘suspended’!
http://www.omaka.org.nz/exhibits.htm
The sole surviving CAPRONI CA22 is on (short) poles.
It is possible that the suspended ones there are all replicas?

There are now several suspended items at MOTAT (a hangar that will contain a Solent and Sunderland needs to be quite tall), but at least from the visbility standpoint there is a mezzanine veiwing area. There are currently a couple more suspended since the photo below was taken, and I think a couple more planned.

New hangers [sic] by errolgc, on Flickr

I don’t have a problem hanging aircraft from the roof. I think they look quite dramatic and interesting, not to mention slightly scary.

That’s true, and an important point; also the projections mentioned by Ant Harrington earlier are reasonably ‘sympathetic’ and ‘dramatic’, in my opinion. (That is, of course, entirely subjective.)

However it is often overlooked that aircraft are, very definitely, not designed to be hung or suspended; and not for periods of years. Pre-metal airframes are specifically worse off for this issue, with predominantly elastic and relaxing structures of natural fibrous materials – wood and fabric, braced for ground and flying loads, not suspension.

Museums know how to suspend delicate objects, but in my research on the topic, it is evident it is simply not a good idea for aircraft of this era, whatever the PR dept claim after the decision has been made.

I am surprised that they will hang them from the roof of the GW Building. Isn’t the point of that building `the building` itself?
I enjoy the building and the electrical panel as much as the aircraft within. A little piece of aviation building history.
Atmosphere and all that.

Quite.

Regards,

I don’t have a problem hanging aircraft from the roof. I think they look quite dramatic and interesting, not to mention slightly scary.
I am surprised that they will hang them from the roof of the GW Building. Isn’t the point of that building `the building` itself?
I enjoy the building and the electrical panel as much as the aircraft within. A little piece of aviation building history.
Atmosphere and all that.

I’m presuming they’ve had to close the W.W.I gallery in time for the anniversary, rather than deciding to.

I wonder if its going to be like Omaka ?

Interesting point David. It would be possible to do that, with Wheta Workshops and TVAL, and that would be – combining that expertise with curatorial and heritage standards (as mostly done at Omaka) – a great thing. I’d be VERY impressed if someone else could do a job that achieves the WW & TVAL standards.

Hanging aircraft. It just seems to come around and around.

The ‘Tower of Babel’ – I certainly hope that’s been staked and buried at a crossroads.

LVG will be re-restored before display.

Regards,

Does all this activity imply that the Tower of Babel with the plastic Luftwaffe has been quietly shelved?

Interesting artist impressions in Flypast magazine and the report which show a DH2, what looks like a Nieuport 11 and a Morane Parasol.
Also the Pup is shown hanging up.

It could be because the Vimy, being effectively a postwar type, has no place in the First World War exhibit they are creating. How that excludes the Tabloid (which I believe was the first type to raid Germany) I don’t know.

I take it then that the Vimy has to go for no other reason than its too tall and will get in the way of the hung airframes.
I wonder how much damage will be caused by hanging these airframes?

What a truly awful scene thats going to be.

Perhaps they’ll dust off their LVG C.VI and put that on display. Here’s hoping.