Oh god I’ve just spilt my tea 🙂 🙂

God Almighty, A&E will be filled this Christmas if you lot carry on like this.
Scaldings from Tea, Hernia, bruised ego’s.
Whatever next.
😀 😀 😀
A…

Go take a picture of your window instead.

If you’re daft enough to post a picture of your window frame here you’re leaving yourself wide open.
By now we all know what a p*ss-taking group of thugs we all are and why should the UKAR boys be any different?
Either live with it or go elsewhere.
Simple.
Now grow up.

Carry on Ranting…

The most useless overpaid people in this country are celebrities. A prime example of how bad things are was demonstrated by Anglia TV yesterday. They preferred to make the main news story Thick and Thin’s christening. 5 minutes of drivel, and an OB team at the local pub. The christening reputedly costing £0.5M.
The flight of R4118 a fleeting coverage, yet more money spent rebuilding this part of our heritage, and a tribute to those who fought and died, and those involved in rebuilding and funding the project.
Put these ‘celebrities’ in their true place, a long way down the food chain.
Reporters/journalists/programme makers get your act together. R4118’s rebuild would have made a terrific programme.

Rant over, still angry.

You carry on mate
Couldn’t agree more.
These people contribute nothing to this country.
If I was in charge they’d be given jobs cleaning the streets–I’m not sure many of them would be bright enough to accomplish a job like that though.
Otherwise un-employable is a term that comes to my mind.
Cheers
Andy

Hi Dan,
try Chav aid from last week.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36061

Cheers
Andy

Hi Andy, I’d respectfully disagree with you on this one. The Halifax at Hendon is an historical artefact. It is history alive and a powerful reminder of those crews who did not make it back. Suggesting that history can be taught solely by books/records is a strange way of thinking. Without primary sources such as these we are left with only corruptable secondary sources that leave us with a lesser understanding of the past. Are the fragments of ancient mosaic roman scrap? No, they are not. They are valuable resources from which we can learn about our past. Why do we preserve them? We preserve them to allow future generations to interpret ( seems to be in ‘in’ word 🙂 ) and study. Not simply to know they existed.

An interesting thread seems to have gone quite nasty, lets get it back on track.

best regards, steve

Steve,
if anyone ever set out to destroy the Hendon Halifax they’d have to move me first, so I don’t thing we disagree that much. I was playing devils advocate in the hope that it might make a few of our little congregation think a bit about aircraft preservation and what it involves, before they make rash statements about if they were in charge and what they’d be doing.
Sadly however a few misguided individuals decided to get personal about it.
I’m not sure we needed to preserve more than one Beverley, I do think it would have better to have the one we have got in better circumstances.
However I stick to what I said about money–It’s no good at all pretending that it doesn’t matter.
It’s also pointless pretending that there’s a crock of gold just over the next hill in the form of the HLF or Government funding.
Thanks
Andy

Why preserve anything?
To show that it once existed.
Lots of people have expressed a desire to see many of the between-the-wars types in museums; what, in your judgement, should we do with the few that we have – just scrap them because they represent a bad time historically for Britain? Give them away as playground equipment? Its not like they are the only representations from that period: we have photos, books, that sort of thing. But that was all around 70-odd years ago and we all know that the 1950s will never be that long ago, never long enough that the weird and wacky aircraft from that era will look as strange as those from the 20s and 30s look ancient…
Just because you don’t think it should have been preserved doesn’t mean that all will agree with you.

You are so short-sighted it’s a wonder you can get out of bed…:rolleyes:
Would you say the same of a Spitfire, Hurricane, or Mustang? So a Halifax is not sexy to you, nor a Stirling, Hampden, Whitley, etc. Are Lancasters or Fortresses? Why don’t we just scrap them as well – free up space for another bloody Spitfire.
Obviously you spare little thought for the dwindling pool of veterans who enjoy viewing their old mounts (although there will always be a few who don’t, admittedly). Sometimes it is all they can do to remember their halcyon days, but if you feel that an old Halifax pilot shouldn’t pay his respects to his fallen comrades at those remains in the RAFM then unquestionably you must know best. Personally I feel they have much more authority to express their views on the contents of the RAFM than the likes of us who never served…
So, because you know how they handled and what they looked like it clearly means that you are the font of knowledge on all these aircraft and we should bow before you! I am pleased that I did see them (just, but maybe you with your contacts can get the RAFM to turn the lights on before you scrap them?) and eager to hear your thoughts on the masses of airworthy Spits, etc, which we clearly don’t need because we all know what they look like, perform like, and what they did…
Merry Christmas,

Flood

Flood Darling
I’m yet to be convinced that any of it is really worth preserving.
There’s much from history I wish was preserved but wasn’t but if the question is, how much difference has that made to the World around me (and you) today I think the answer is probably not much.
Apart from expending a lot of bile in my direction you haven’t come up with a rational answer why they should be preserved.
I’m not particularly interested in seeing hordes of preserved Spitfires either and I’ve never claimed to know much about anything.
If only, I was apparently an expert like you.
As far as veterans are concerned I know two WW2 veterans well. What they think about it all might surprise you.
If you want to get personal I will of course but it’s late and I can’t be bothered.
Cheers
Andy

Albert,
I was just streigtening the record vis a vis the Hendon Bev; you can’t legitimately park that failure at the RAFM’s door. Others? Dunno.

And all those who are passionate about Bev preservation – where were you when the Beverley Bev was up for grabs? I asked for people to get of the backsides – so don’t winge now if you didn’t act a year ago. Grrr.

Charley,
Hindsight’s wonderful, but put yourself back in the 40s and 50s before getting too dewey eyed. History judges those who scrapped the Tiffies, Whirlies, etc perfectly well. There was a war on, and then a peace to be won. They were needed for soup cans to help feed families.

Hi James.
Yes, you asked me to write a letter and I did.
So despite what I say here above I’m firmly behind aviation preservation.
Of course you know me and know that (I hope) to be true.
I do just get a bit fed up with people on here wanting to preserve the un-preservable and hopeless ‘this or that aircraft to the skies’ projects.
This thread started as a wish list for Hendon. My wish would be to see that Hallibag restored to pristine condition.
With some lights on it and a nice bench nearby where I could sit for some considerable period of time and admire it.
Cheers
Andy

I’m not sure why the Bev in general (as opposed to the heap of scrap that was at Hendon) is considered an irrelevance by some here, Transport command ops in the 1950s and 60s must come under Hendon’s remit and they played an important part in Britain’s foreign policy during that period – I don’t see why the ‘less sexy’ aircraft should be pushed to one side all the time.

What would I like to see at Hendon? The Halifax on its own gear! A Buffalo, Whitley and Stirling naturally

I’d like to see a MoD policy where a close eye is kept on certain ‘historic’ service airframes with a view to giving Hendon ‘first dibs’ when they get withdrawn from service – Chinook ‘Bravo November’ springs to mind – OK she’s a HC2 now. Perhaps in later years a dedicated ‘Falklands war’ enclave? – Oh, and a HUDO reconstruction using the back-end of the next Vulcan to be scraped!

And another thing………extend the LT line from Colindale to RAFM Hendon – I’m not getting any younger you know and I can’t afford to pass H******s!

Hi
I’m not just pushing transport aircraft to one side. I’d question what we’re achieving by ‘preserving’ the Halifax that’s lying in Hendon. After all it’s just a pile of Ali scrap.
Someone here is going to tell me that’s it highly significant Ali scrap but why is it?
We know from records almost all we need to know as historians about the Halifax so what do we gain by keeping some Halifax bits?
I’d say the same about why do we need a Stirling, Hampden, Whitley etc?
We know what these aircraft looked like, performed like and what they did.
Are we like some band of manic model collectors who want to tick off another new type on our ‘I’ve seen it’ list?

It’s a thought innit??
Andy