A word to the wise.

I recall reading that the National Rail Museum had stopped accepting certain types of bequest donations because they were usually couched in terms of ‘to be held in perpetuity’ by the museum which restricted the museum in what they could do with the material if it duplicated their existing material, for example.

Good to here that news. I was there last two years ago.
Yes Visas are required. Always a nice long Q outside the Embassy, and if you are not in the door by 12 – tough- good bye.
I Paid a courier to get there early to join the Q 😉

Queue? That’s old technology! Now you have to call an expensive phone number to make an appointment for six weeks time. My (Russian) wife thought she could stroll in to her consulate as per usual and they threatened to call the police to have her removed.

It seems ironic that Cosford would even be interested in acquiring Warsaw Pact hardware from the ‘East’ when a Sukhoi SU-22 exists on Spadeadam range – various
Mig’s at Hawarden and the RAF BF received a pair of Mig-21’s in the 1990’s which they sold for fundraising .

Not really.

They were presented with the concept of a package of a dozen aircraft which hopefully would come to them at no (or very little cost) including some types (such as the Yak-38/Su-25 and Su-15) which were not represented elsewhere in collections in western europe. Unfortunately, it all collapsed post 9/11 when the availability of sponsorship from aviation sources was unlikely whilst the Russian side kept jacking up their demands.

It has to be said that it turned out that they had tried to do a similar deal with China a year or two prior to this and that had collapsed on the money aspect.

The Russian side had a rather strange view of the value of their airframes totally ignoring any possible historical value to Mother Russia but totally inflating the monetary value of grounded engine less airframes.

Anyway, it is all past history now and I suppose I will never get my Su-27 for my driveway. 🙁

Rlangham.

dhfan.

I believe you are right. I don’t think any of the exhibits are going to move much when the new construction is complete. The concept is apparently a divided world. That might make some sense if you put Eastern Bloc aircraft on one side and aircraft of Western Nations on the other, but I think it would be a bit lopsided. Is anything Russian other than the Mig going in? However, the twisted shape, although not mentioned as part of the design, makes a fair representation of the Cold War gone hot.

There were discussions some years ago to bring some preserved aircraft over from Russia to Cosford. Unfortunately, the Russian side kept moving the goal posts in terms of what they actually wanted and substantial sponsorship would have been needed to pay for it all and the plan came to naught.

It was a great pity because the Cosford side were very keen to show aviation aspects from the ‘other side’ of the Cold War.

when it was announced that Kylie had breast cancer