The original poster here suggested that Kevin feels he has nothing to contribute to this forum. Having dealt with him often over the years, I feel I must say that I’ve found the opposite to be the case. Kevin has a deep empathy with the ordinary men who have served this country over the years, he understands the meaning of the words service and duty to a very great extent, and that’s what makes his researches and writings so illuminating. He and I may not have always seen the World–well the modern World the same way, or agreed, but I believe that on the matters listed above, we understand at least those in a similar way. I have more often than not wished he would write more (he did have one book published some years ago), but I feel that he won’t–again for reasons of his own. I’d certainly happily read whatever he decided to research and write about.

Whereas here we’ve got the usual dreary drizzle which knackers outside activities like motorbiking, flying, gardening, barbecues and anything else.

is it going to Waddington..?

A two day show was tried back in the early 1990’s. I remember it mainly because on the Saturday, a Slingsby Firefly fell out of a loop with fatal consequences for the pilot–Not Good..!!
That’s a big ask for all staff and volunteers I would say–as show days are very long for all those concerned.
I think there were eleven shows last year and that stretches volunteering very thin too–considering I own a few motorbikes myself, and my partner and I like to do other things, plus run a home–etc etc etc, and most of the rest of the volunteer body also have wide ranging interests/commitments, and the paid staff have to give up their weekends.
Speaking very personally, I’ve seen far too much Chipmunk in some afternoons in recent times. Lessening the number of shows would give engineering a chance to keep serviceability a bit higher too. Not their fault when stuff is getting used every fortnight for five months.

And speaking as his solicitor, the case of him touching said machinery ahem ‘inappropriately’ was never proved, though it was unfortunate that someone kicked over the starter whilst he was ‘at it’.

TT. Thanks for your sound legal advice. As you say nothing was ever proved….
Although polishing the Aurora whilst sitting under the wing of the Bleriot isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Tim.S and CADman.
Thank you for your support. I don’t do very much–not as much as some of them who’ve been out there all week for training week, or the ones who labour away in the workshops or some who run themselves ragged doing that bane of all of us–admin stuff, and the car restorers and those keeping the collection of vehicles going, and the agricultural stuff restorers. And most of all the full time engineers who work for not much material reward but the love of it very often. They all deserve your thanks.
Many of them are my closest friends and therefore I tend to defend them.

I’m not precious–but fed up.
For every worthwhile volunteer contribution there are 99 ‘helpful’ suggestions–pitched in such a way as to make the recipient sound as if they’re too thick to have original ideas. Usually it starts with:- ‘What you ought to be doing is…..’

AA, what you describe is ‘The Shuttleworld’ scenario, which has been discussed many times. That being the turning of the place into a theme park. It would of course make money–for a time, but in the longer term would probably fail. However, relying on aviation enthusiasts to the detriment of all others wouldn’t be a great idea either. So, the line between the two has to be balanced on–sometimes this works better than other times. One thing that is often forgotten is this, that there is a remit to educate, and that must be seen to be carried out. That in recent years has been by the very successful apprenticeship programme. There is no remit to entertain, when the charitable trust was formed, there was I think no thought of the place being open to the public as an attraction–let’s face it, they were not yet ‘invented’. We’re a long way from ‘Shuttleworld’ and I doubt you’ll ever see it but we all live in a very commercial World and the pressures of making money and therefore by default entertaining cannot be ignored.