I’m doing a little research and was wondering…. How many civilian museums exist on current MOD land? I know of Bassingborn and Wattisham to name just two but was wondering how many more exist?
What are the pro’s and con’s and how do these museums manage to opperate? Do they face the same problem as the Boscombe Down museum?
I know there are representatives of these museums on here so hopefully they can shine some light on the subject!
By: 12jaguar - 17th February 2011 at 21:16
Thanks for that Mike,
We’ve just moved into new premises and that nearly killed us, everything on a Stirling is big!! As you say it might be worth a punt once we start building some bigger parts.
We may well be in touch;)
John
By: Amarok - 17th February 2011 at 19:58
Sounds about right 🙁
When I was in the RAF in the 70’s (RAF Lyneham had BF109 Black 6 in the hangar) it was the case if serving members were involved you managed to beg steal or borrow facilities no Barney 🙂
But once the RAF staff were posted or moved on that was it, I think Black 6 moved with Russ to RAF Benson
John,
I have been in contact with the Group who are trying to save some buildings at RAF Oakington (Not too far from Wyton) after a number of emails they now have one of the two J Hangars on their Radar, as this was a Stirling Base in WWII your project would fit in really nice and I suspect would bolster the bid for the Hangar, it might be worth a punt ?
http://www.ldhs.org/airfield-history-oakington-raf/raf-oakington-2/
Kind Regards
Mike
By: 12jaguar - 17th February 2011 at 19:34
Hi Phil
We’re not a museum as such although we in the Stirling Project did make use of the facilities at RAF Wyton to c/o our restoration work. We finally left there a few weeks ago following a request from Defence Estates (DE)that we start paying rent, needless to say it was way beyond the means of our small Charity so we had to look for alternative premises. If I had still been in the MoD and we had a few more members who also were, our rent would still have been free as we would have operated under what is known as an Encroachment Licence, which basically means we would have been a service supported club.
Unfortunately as I had left the Civil Service and there were fewer and fewer RAF servicemen who were interested we no longer qualified for this privilege. On the plus side the RAF were very sorry to see us go as we maintained a link to the historical side of things, but the bean counters in DE held sway.
Currently though, RAF Wyton does still host the Pathfinder Museum under an Encroachment although how long this remains so is anyone’s guess
regards
John
By: Phantom Phil - 17th February 2011 at 18:04
Help!
Thought I’d bump this back up the que. Has anybody got anything to add as It would be most welcomed!?
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February 16, 2011 at 8:14 pm