VTTS Hard Facts Finally Coming Home To Roost?

I can’t see where your assumption of a saving derives from. You are more than doubling the labour content of the build, and whatever savings you’d make from not buying all the materials would probably be eaten up sourcing small quantities of materials no longer readily available to replace inevitable losses of the originals.

But honestly, I am guessing as much as you. I can’t claim specialist knowledge.

Your guess is much more accurate.

Moving an old hangar is an emotional thought, not a rational or realistic one. As said it would cost a LOT more, take a lot longer and plus you would end up having to replace so much of it anyway to make it compliant in todays world (especially as this is going to have to meet public access regs) that it is just a pointless consideration.

Sadly, I can only see one positive way out of this and it isn’t going to happen. There are far two many ifs involved, but please allow me to dream. So,
IF the RAF were to come to some arrangement with Lincolnshire CC to convert Scampton into an aviation heritage centre, and
IF it moved the BBMF there, and IF XH558 could be flown there, and

If the Panton family were to base NX611 there after she has flown,

Then maybe, just maybe, that centre could be commercially viable. But, as I said, it is only going to happen in my dreams!

Plough – the accounts don’t really reflect the hangar activities been lucrative. The wage bill alone to Oct 16 was 854k – lease 229K against income of something like 298K from tours . You can add something like 180 K from other hangar events . Clearly the model of using it to make money wasn’t working.

If she had gone to an established site we can surmise lease being zero and sadly in terms of employment it would have been reduced far quicker. However far more money could have been fundraised from other activities and retained rather than spending it on wages and lease.

To the more knowledgeable; are the monumentally big Cardington airship hangars available and of sufficient size?

Are they big enough? Yes. Are they available? No, they are both now to be used by the film industry…

…anyway, how do you get the Vulcan to Cardington?

There is no runway and a road move may as well take the Vulcan somewhere else.

Hi All,
TwinOtter23 – Thanks matey still you have to wonder why they charge the normal rate when those organisations such as VTTS operate on ltd
budgets and are not a business where any profit is ploughed back into the restoration and maintenance of whatever they are custodians.

I really think that all projects like them should get maximum tax relief have fees like planning App’s waved or a meagre fee charged…:stupid:

Geoff.

Geoff, planning fees are based on a set of national rates, not a local level.

Hi All,
Moogy – Likewise matey it was all guesswork on my part..:rolleyes:

TwinOtter23 – Many thanks for that so in short it’s cheaper to construct new build hangar…:eagerness:

plough – Any idea why the planning application cost so much ? Come to that being as the VTTS is a good cause couldn’t they have waved the
charge or was the cost already a heavily discounted ?

Here’s yet another poser for all of you:- Being as the Vulcan was associated with Robinhood as a dispersal site for these beautiful aircraft did the
council forgo the rates and so forth cost that are normally charged to businesses ? If not why not being the whole operation was based on donations
and backers ?

Geoff.

The £200k was to cover the cost of the move, plus the cost of the redundancy packages for those staff who lost their jobs, plus the ongoing costs associated with the running of the trust and maintenance of the aircraft. They have also had the not insubstantial cost of getting the design for the new hangar drawn up and all the preliminary work associated with the planning application. They state that the fee payable to Doncaster borough council for submitting the planning application was £15+k, you can imagine what the fees for architects, ground surveys and the rest have probably cost.

Similar costs would have been incurred for a planning application for any other host site, if indeed there had been any realistic likelihood of a planning application for such a hangar being accepted/approved at some of the sites we hear so much about. You say they could have channelled the money they have raised into building a hangar had 558 gone elsewhere, BUT, without an existing hangar in which to host those lucrative money raising events, it would not have been possible to raise the kind of sums you are referring to, and therefore the funding to build a hangar would be worse (or at least no better) than it is now.

Iclo: they always knew the flying lifetime available was finite, and the trust always operated with this in mind – regardless of the withdrawal of support by BAe and RR, 558 had only a small amount of FI left and limited engine cycles remaining to fly with anyway (and had flown significantly more hours than any other Vulcan had done). At most, it could only have flown for part of a season, and then only after expensive replacement of life expired components. A parallel fundraising campaign to fund a retirement hangar would have been a good move, except that they were having to put every available effort into raising sufficient funds just to keep 558 flying and a parallel funding appeal would in all probability have diluted the response to appeals for funds for maintenance and flying costs.

The cost of erecting a hangar building will be near enough the same wherever you erect it in the UK. There will only be differences in the price/rent of the location of the ground it is to stand on, and perhaps differing fees for submitting a planning application.

To the more knowledgeable; are the monumentally big Cardington airship hangars available and of sufficient size ? If they are big enough, even part occupation might suffice in the short term.

What doesn’t add up is that it has cost 200K to put it in storage . I think people expected ‘storage’ to consist of something ! As it stands it’s consumed a fair chunk of money for the past few years being sat . If the 12 thousand visitors figure given for last year is anything to go by its hard to see how it can operate on leased land and give a return in 2.8 million investment. If the machine had gone to an alternative venue the monies raised could have been channeled into hangar building not rent and wages.

Hi,

It’s difficult to understand how the whole thing was planned: I guess stopping to fly the Vulcan was not a short decision and internally VTTS was knowing long before that the two owner of the design will stop supporting the flying. A parallel fundraising to secure the future of the plane by building a hangar would have take place years before the grounding.

For the fact, other final landing place would have required to build an hangar too, I think the cost of erecting a hangar will vary with the location: how much cost the square feet on a commercial / active airport vs a museum airport. (and a museum airport would have allow to perform ground run / fast taxi run, best way to keep the cash coming.)

We are now six months on from the successful conclusion of the £200,000 Survival Campaign

Err wasn’t that raised under the auspices of being the amount required to move between hangars and NOT to sustain themselves over the intervening period….

It was stated at the time that it was to cover the cost of moving and to see them through the period until they were able to restart commercial visitor activity in a new hangar, so I don’t think there was any attempt to decieve or defraud. I do think they underestimated the timescale though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a further funding ‘push’ is required for next year.

For those suggesting moving an old hangar from elsewhere; the small knowledge I have of moving agricultural steel framed buildings would suggest to me that it is quite likely that moving a hangar from elswhere may end up costing more than building a new one from scratch, and you would still have an old building which would probably require more in the way of ongoing maintenance costs in the medium term than a brand new construction would do.

Some people (especially elsewhere on the net) are conveniently forgetting that if 558 had gone to any of the popularly mentioned alternative homes, there would have still been the need to build a hangar for it (none being available at those sites), and in all likelihood, 558 would now have been standing outside for 2 years rather than 2 months, and without the level of income that had been generated by events in Hangar 3 to pay for the upkeep. Whilst other Vulcans are indeed being looked after outside by volunteers on a shoestring budget, only a fool would deny that they have been having an uphill battle.

Geoff, here’s a previous thread that contains a post of mine (#15) about refurbished T2 hangar costs http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1424108&postcount=15

It might provide some clarity albeit at prices from 15+ years ago – don’t forget that wartime steel is also now 15 years older!

I can’t see where your assumption of a saving derives from. You are more than doubling the labour content of the build, and whatever savings you’d make from not buying all the materials would probably be eaten up sourcing small quantities of materials no longer readily available to replace inevitable losses of the originals.

But honestly, I am guessing as much as you. I can’t claim specialist knowledge.

Moggy

Hi All,
Piston – Au fait cough…:D No problem matey I never mind when I am put right, many thanks….:eagerness:

L4x2 – That was my initial thought also…..:D

Moggy C – It was just me thinking aloud that for a reduced amount of money they would have a decent hangar that would suit the Vulcan
more aesthetically. I was just wondering what it would actually cost to take it down brick by brick then re construct it at Robinhood ? I assume it
would about a million cheaper especially if the RAF helped out with the transport etc . I know it is impracticable to do and unrealistic but I would
still love to know if anyone on the forum knows whether or not it would be feasible and cheaper as I assume ?

Geoff.

To save anyone else having to look up the current exchange rate, that amounts to a little under £5 million.

Moggy

Here’s an example of what’s possible given a good plan.

A purpose built 32,000 square foot facility (24,000 square foot hangar) for the recently restored and airworthy B-29 “Doc”.
Last year I was speaking to a Wichita businessman involved in the aviation industry, he said that supporting the Superfortress has become a huge community undertaking.

http://www.kansas.com/news/business/aviation/article174671446.html

So the $6.5 million building is a very good effort for a city of fewer than 400,000 residents…and less than 640,000 if you add in the surrounding 4 counties.

Considering the national profile of the Vulcan project, you’d expect a similar solution could be found.

Or to the London Bridge in the US?

I thought about that after I posted, just take it that I meant ‘realistically’ 🙂

Moggy

Re the above.

You probably could but it would take ages to number every brick so that they went back in the same place. Haven’t you ever been to Beamish?

Geoff, you are wandering a bit off track here.

You couldn’t move a C-Type and erect it somewhere else.

Moggy