Museum Of Army Flying

The “no photography ” lines are now removed from their website. So either it is allowed now, or still forbidden and told after arriving/paying on site. BW Roger

Its the most dimly lit museum i’ve ever visited making photography almost impossible with a 35mm,even friends with digital cameras struggled.

Must admit it’s put me off visiting as well, as I was hoping to photograph the Auster V there – it’s one of the few Auster variants I haven’t seen yet, at least in wartime guise

From a look at the website I fear that the diplomatic skills of Aeronut and his colleagues will be sorely tested in the weeks to come.

I have a cunning plan, as someone used to say on telly. A friend up here is an ex-WW2 glider pilot, Arnhem veteran and all the rest, taught to fly by Jackie Coogan in the US. A picture of his younger self is on display at the MAF, and whenever he is down south he always pays a visit.

If some jobsworth were either to throw him out of confiscate his camera, a word in the ear of the local freelance press agency would almost certainly trigger a chain of events that would have the MAF wrong-footed almost from the word go. The Daily Mail may not be my cup of tea as a paper, but it does have its uses!:D

I’ve just returned from my stint as Duty Manager at MAF and this is the first I’ve heard so I will check it out. :confused:

There is a new management team at the museum and I do know that they are being driven down a more commercial path by goverment numpties.

In the past I’ve opened cockpits and cowlings and let photographers across the barriers – just so long as they asked and didn’t consider it to be their right.

I’m not looking forward to being haranged by enraged photographers.:(

be interesting to know the rationale, but I can only see it losing them visitors.

Possibly so they can sell more postcards etc.

I was just thinking of planning a return visit there sometime in the next month. Now I won’t bother. I knew they wouldn’t allow tripods in the past but now it seems from their web site no photography at all.

The Kent Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge also bans photography. I haven’t visited there either.

be interesting to know the rationale, but I can only see it losing them visitors.

Not aviation but maybe related to the Museum of Army Flying – the excellent National Army Museum in Chelsea also has no photography, and they take your bag off you before entering

Not heard anything about it, but you are right:

Photography

From 1st December 2007 NO PHOTOGRAPHY will be allowed inside the musuem

[sic]
Very few aviation museums demand this restriction, and when they do it’s proffered as a ‘security measure’ – less enforceable today than it ever was. AFAIK, no other forces of national level aviation museum does this in the UK. Anyone know more?

Sorry, actually its a Lancashire Aircraft Company Prospector, and its a composite of several airframes

Originally Edgar Percival hence the EP Type no

If it is the real jeep

It *is* the real one.

No ‘ifs’ needed.

The Rotabuggy was flown at RAF Snaith, but It went with AFEE to Beaulieu. But not before it lost its rotor and tail feathers. There is a photo of it (a Jeep with a tall windscreen) towing a trailer on which there is a FA330 gyro kite. If it is the real jeep at Wallop maybe its time to build the rotor system properly now that the original drawings have been found. Anyoner know if ML still have the drawings for the tail – it was built by R Malcolm Ltd at Slough (part of the ML Avaiation empire)

Yes, but….. its actually a Willys Jeep, and even then not the original Rotabuggy.

This is a ‘recreation’ built around a standard jeep.

The Jeep you mention was actually the original Jeep used for the Rotabuggy. I knew the previous owner (who had been at Beaulieu, where they tested it) and for years he’d used the Jeep normally and had people asking why it was fitted with an altimeter!

In more recent times he decided to recreate the Rotabuggy and so fabricated the empennage.

So actually it’s not built around a standard Jeep, at all, to be correct.

Looks like the Museum of Army Flying has joined forces with the catering department to make an interesting museum – the Museum of Army Frying!

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SilkRoad-Ocean/2249/army.html

The rear fuselage of the Hotspur is an original (although neither of the two serial numbers it carried are that of the finished scheme. The Blitz buggy replica is a fair representation when compared to the original drawings in the museum. Hanging above it is what can only be described as Little Nellie’s grandmother the Haffner Rotachute.

Sorry, actually its a Lancashire Aircraft Company Prospector, and its a composite of several airframes

Very nice, cheers! XM819 is a Lincolnshire Prospector, intended as a replacement for the Auster but helicopters were used instead. As far as i know, only the Hotspur glider (one hanging from the ceiling) is a replica, the other gliders are either original, or, in the case of one of the Horsa fuselages and the Hamilcar (huge glider) composites of various pieces of gliders.

What is XM819? Auster Ambulance?

BN Islanders are still on AAC charge according our database.

Interesting pics.

Great pics !!

Are the gliders recreations also ?

TNZ