Mark9 Visits Lasham

Anyone? – Who owns the Lasham Aircraft. I would be happy to ‘preserve’ The AOP9

Hope you have some luck 😉 Anna

The belong to SWWAPS at Lasham .

Anyone? – Who owns the Lasham Aircraft. I would be happy to ‘preserve’ The AOP9

Lasham

Some lovely aircraft, shame about the lack of protection for them. I have always believed that aircraft are surprisingly delicate things; built to fly and/ or to be kept safe in a (well-lit) hangar. The British climate (even with alleged warming) is not kind to airframes and I wish all the best to anyone who can give them a safe home (especially the Drover as this must be a real gem). I wish I could!

Here is another pic of the drover and one of the more interesting glider tugs at Lasham. Thanks for giving the camera back Anna, Nice pic’s though.

:rolleyes: Well one must try one out before investing 😉 I am still thinking Nikon 😉 Anna 😉 🙂

DB,

That’s my point, if we had a single national strategy for preservation then groups or even individuals should be encouraged to make a submission through the ‘Enhanced’ BAPC. The HLF would instantly know that the bid had the support and met the national strategy aims of the ‘Enhanced’ BAPC and that the project could get technical help from the BAPC. Surely this would lead to the HLF being able to ‘give with confidence’ to smaller projects and at the same time meet the recomendations of it’s own report which so far seem to have been ignored.

Should it matter if a historical artifact is owned by a group or an individual as often these items have no real value other than what the scrap man will pay. Should we not encourage all who look to put money into preservation, few do it in order to make money!!. Look at G-AORG it was sold for scrap!! An individual bought it and spent ALOT of money on it to keep it flying. Shouldn’t the preservation movement be keen to offer free hangarage, at for example Duxford, engineering support, parts finding assistance etc, all funded through the HLF and BAPC in order to ensure this aircraft remains in the UK? For the owners part they may be encouraged by the supprt to stick with the rising insurance and fuel bills in order to keep the aircraft in the air in the UK!! It wouldn’t cost a great deal and the preservation movement retains a classic aircraft in the UK, who would loose?? why get so hung up on ownership?? How many Spitfires are owned and operated by Volunteer groups? Private money IS needed and should be encouraged. The rescue of Sally B by Virgin this year is a good example.

There needs to be a greater sense of a collective goal, many people do fine work with limited resources only to find it’s not enough!

As for an anti Vulcan thread, all I’ll say is that it’s a shame so much is being spent on so few to provide so little! What’s really needed is a single strategy to determine the priorities for the future and a transparent organization to implement it.

Drovers.

Roy Blewitt’s ‘Survivors’ list 9 remaining, two of which are fuselages only. Certainly one was flying at Avalon earlier this year. Of course, given only 20 were built, that’s 45% survivor’s rate. And yes, all the others are in Australia.

Having spent my weekend looking at derelict aircraft, it makes me no less determined to take on the Drover at some point. I would dearly love to get this aircraft for the museum, as it will be the only shot we get at acquiring an Australina built member of the de Havilland family.

I will go through some of the above debate and post my own point of view in due course, but lets not turn this into another pro/anti Vulcan thread!

Bruce

Here is another pic of the drover and one of the more interesting glider tugs at Lasham. Thanks for giving the camera back Anna, Nice pic’s though.

In many cases it’s not really a matter of more money – it’s a matter of changing peoples views as to how things should be preserved and how to appeal to the public.
In the 1980’s there was a massive rush to preserve virtually everything that became available.This has resulted in ‘gluts’ of some types of airframes – with a large number in an increasingly parlous state. For example the Canberra recently scrapped at Hemswell had been in ‘preservation’ for twenty years. The team had done their best to preserve her but with the best will in the world corrosion had very much won the battle. This isn’t unusual. The difficulty would be a number of groups applying for money – how would you determine which deserved funding? Also a number of aircraft in preservation are privately owned – how would you decide to spend money on housing private property? The situation at present is poor and needs sorting out.
It does however need to be done with tack and good judgement.

Just to be clear, the National Collections do their own thing and don’t talk to the BAPC? The BAPC do their best with Volunteer groups but as I understand it will not deal with private collectors? How is that going to be a single comprehensive policy?

The relevance to this thread is the Lasham collection, which is a prime example of an underfunded and underresourced group. I certainly don’t believe that all of the £600,000 will be ‘New’ money! How can the BAPC provide meaningful assistance to a group such as SWAAPS? Maybe a BAPC funded by HLF, with workshops, expertise and facilities could provide meaningful help to such a collection. However the HLF could rightly say ‘ but we’ve given £ Millions to the preservation of aviation, others now need the funds’.

Will the Vulcan really be such a good advert for aviation? The extraordinary crossing of the Atlantic by the Vimy replica earlier this year went largly un noticed by the wider media, why would they show any interest in the Vulcan?

To stop small collections dying a slow death there needs to be one voice asking HLF for money to fund a coherent strategy of country wide preservation that covers ALL levels from the National Collections right down to the Cockpit collector in his garage. Its the only way to ensure that our increasingly sparse heritage is protected. We’ve all seen the scrapyard threads and thought ‘ but why didn’t someone save that aircraft’ but still today such aircraft are being lost!

The arguments for and against the finding of the Vulcan have been aired many times already on this and other fora. The Lottery cash has not been taken out of the wider preservation “system” so it does not impinge against any other projects. Obviously more cash is needed and that will come from individuals and that is for the conscience of those individuals to contribute or not, as they wish.

I certainly agree that more time, space and coverage should be devoted to wider preservation concerns, but such things make for bad news – worthy but rarely “newsworthy”. As enthusiasts we need to pull together, support local projects and the bigger national ones as well. There will never be enough money and hard choices will always have to be made, but pitting one against another will never assist.

I beleive that the Vulcan will go a long way to bring preservation more in the spotlight than any number of seminars on corrosion. On a national policy – the BAPC already exists. It probably should have more teeth and better support, but then again, we’ve never been good at celebrating out acheivements in this nation.

The BAPC exists to foster goodwill amongst groups and further the cause of preservation in the U.K. However they are a volunteer organisation which relies on the precious spare time of it’s members. The National Aviation Heritage Register documents the aircraft in the U.K within these organisations and their status .
The problem with all this is that the BAPC cannot as such tell it’s members what to do and indeed in the case of the large National collections they pretty much do as they wish without any dialogue with the BAPC. Where this leaves us is with a largely fragmented and sadly in many ways repetitive preservation of aircraft. In some respects by not preserving the prime examples of types we end up with mass duplication and in some cases aircraft that don’t deserve preservation.
The only way I see British preservation having a realistic future is for the BAPC to go full time with all that entails. We are not talking massive sums of money – similar sums to which are now being spent on identifying historic ships would do. Certainly government funded but independent of the museums as a whole. The days of aircraft sitting moldering in fields is numbered – Hemswell is all but finished and others will go in the next few years. The belief that aircraft will survive outside indefinately needs to change and as a whole the requirements of insurance and health and safety need to be grasped.

Personally I find it outragous that one project expects to take £600,000 pounds out of enthusiasts pockets and another £2,500,000 from the HLF to support ONE already preserved aircraft for a VERY limited amount of flying time and in doing so breach on of the recomendations in the HLF’s own report!!!

Of the £600,000 being given by the public, how much of it is ‘New’ money and how much may have been spent at airshows, thus supporting a range of flying aircraft?? How much may have been spent visiting local museum projects?? The truth is we will never know, but we do know that £600,000 would have put a roof over the Jet Age Museum collection, which includes a rare Typhoon cockpit. That collection must now be very near to collapse? we do know that the collection at Lasham is suffering badly from the elements and seems to have little money or manpower to stop the rot. We do know that still the vast majority of ‘preserved’ airframes have to be kept outside due to the lack of available hangarage. We do know that Airshows are facing a financially harder future with reduced numbers attending. What are the forcast increases in attendance due to the Vulcan being present?

What gain is there for the preservation movement in general in getting one aircraft airworthy when many others face such an uncertain future?? If there was a single preservation policy in the UK, should it not be one of diversity rather than ‘one off’ spectaculars?

The Vulcan to the sky team did a remarkable job in getting a policy U turn out of the HLF, it’s just a pity that the U turn was not of wider benifit. The HLF report makes mention of the provision of shared restoration facilities and of the problems of corrosion. I just think it’s a pity that the effort wasn’t used to encourage the HLF to provide those things instead! Bruntingthorpe could have been a Mecca for those looking for workshop facilities and expertise in restoration with a diversity of aircraft being worked on and the HLF meeting it’s own reports reccomendations rather than ignoring them.

Maybe I was a bit strong in urging people to not support XH558, after all they worked hard to get to where they are and it is the individuals choice as to who they support so I appologise. However, wouldn’t it be good to see as much magazine space being devoted to forming a national preservation policy that could be put into practice with the financial support of the HLF and thus meet the recommendations of the HLF’s own report? At the moment there are the National collections, Volunteer collections and private individuals all working to different agenda’s with different resources, shouldn’t one policy pull them all together into one preservation movement?

The Lasham aircraft are ‘preserved’, I take my hat off to them as they have kept the aircraft from the scrappy. It is hard to find time and money to restore everything.

The money given by the HLF to mainstream museums could have gone a whole ways further and been better spent on smaller museums (that have charitable status). It is a bit like that dome monstrosity the money wasted on it could have put a decent leisure sports centre in every major city in the UK…

People look at xmillion to a museum and think oh good. Whereas a small museum given £100k could put most of its collection undercover. The BAPC came up with a list of significant and benchmark airframes. This invaluable tool can be used to raise capital from the HLF and other sources.

I can only urge people not to support XH558 and give the money to their local museum project instead.

I think this is an outrageous statement. How would you like it if people were urged not to support Newark ( for argument’s sake) but to give to East Kirkby instead? By all means support local organisations, they need and deserve our support, but to attempt to undermine other orgainsiation’s work….well, it’s hardly a gentlemanly thing to suggest..

Which private individual owns those AC?

External storage of rare aircraft is a problem identified by the Heritage Lottery Fund but then ignored when it comes to making awards! As I mentioned on another thread how much hangarage would £3 mill have bought for all the volunteer organisations that are struggling to save their aircraft, including the excellent but space limited MAM and the Jet Age Museum??

See the following link for the HLF report, the executive summary is sufficient to get the jist of the report!!

http://www.hlf.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/72515D6F-7F5E-43F3-8DE6-C8C392A0401B/0/Transport_report_full.PDF

I can only urge people not to support XH558 and give the money to their local museum project instead. It’s the only way many rare aircraft (Drover Percival Pembroke, DH Dove and DH Heron all currently suffering in external storage) are going to be saved from the scrap man as once the corrosion goes too far it becomes a Health and Safety issue with only one conclusion!!

Would make a very interesting addition, only shortage at the DH Museum seems to be space!

I think you’ll find Bruce has had his beady eyes on it for some time. 🙂