Others who have had day to day contact with the CAA are better placed to give details but bottom line expectations and costs are spiralling for certification and I suspect this may lead to more aircraft moving abroad. The US, Aus and NZ seem to have struck a happy balance which has lead to many of the skills and projects heading in that direction. They seem to have a thriving business even in this climate….so it can work and be safe.

Perhaps looking back at the thread there is a 3 way race to see what can end flying first, fuel, insurance or paperwork.

I have to add that I to was really heartened to see so many people under 25 voluteering at Cosford, it has to be a fantastic place to get the next generation of people interested in aircraft 🙂

It is a catch-22 scenario for many museums/societies or even private restorations, by that I mean there is a shortage of old-skills available. Invariably the guys that have the skill are highly sought after and the few that do volunteer are required to do specific jobs in the time that they have available. Now does this guy spend all his time teaching other volunteers? Perhaps material is wasted at the beginning, perhaps the time taken increases exponentially and perhaps teaching others is not what the skilled guys signed up to do and they simply want to make/restore items (which would eventually lead to them leaving because it is not what they expected).

Everything I do is self taught or from quizzing others in the field. Curreltly this is ‘simply’ the collation of data or data modelling as I have not even got to the part where individual parts are restored. I have looked on and off for courses in various skills for years but to no avail (great if you can make it to the US) and there is nothing really local to me where I can voluteer in the manner which I am able to do (with young children this would literally be a few hours here and there so has to be close to make it worthwhile for everyone).

What will happen? I believe there will always be a small niche where skills are transferred and maintained but I also believe that you have to move with the times. Aircraft were (and still are) made with the technology available at the time so why can’t new methods apply to restore old aircraft? Aircraft will be grounded permenantly if the CAA don’t get their act together (and move with the times), they are killing a whole sector of avaiation however; museum and restoration pieces will continue to get attention they deserve.

As for ‘Is posterity best served by our museum sector in 2013?’ I don’t believe so. The current mix we have seems to work for me, there are many individuals who work tirelesly with their own project (or projects) which help to recognise a previous generation and their sacrifices and supplement the work the musuem sector does. After all museums can’t do it all, you only have to look at the number of projects going on at Cosford to see that and they are one of the bigger ones.

Hope this isn’t too much of a ramble….

I have yet to hear any particular details but it would make sense for the Typhoon to be going to Canada as part of any anniversary events, after all a large percentage of the Typhoon squadrons were made up of Canadiens and from memory there are very few airframes from the period extant in Canada (unless someone can tell me differently of course). The Typhoon would be a unique opportunity (although not a genuine veteran) to highlight RCAF personnel and what they achieved and in particular the hugely effective, and very costly, low level support work.

From a purely selfish point of view I hope they aren’t doing any conservation work while over there as I have been waiting years for its turn to be worked on so I can measure everything in the wings!!! Putting that selfishness aside I really do hope its visit achieves everything the people involved want it to, but not too long away from the UK please 🙂 .

p.s. if anyone can tell me where in Canada it is going then I would be very grateful.

I do have to say that the response about disappointed is a very negative view, the people that were staffing the open day were either all volunteers or full time staff who (I assume) were giving up their weekend to satisfy the interest and curiosity of the public. If they opened all the time then when would they get the chance to do anything?

As for the Typhoon cockpit being available to view, with my ‘small’ interest in the type I would have loved to have just hopped over the barrier and looked more closely over all of it however; if you look at the picture of them loading it and the date involved you could see that it had been there only a matter of days and it is going to be packed up and shipped out very shortly. I am sure they do not have equipment available off the shelf to allow people to climb up and view in a safe environment….and talking of safety I am a firm believer that we only have ourselves to blame for the current situation after all it is a complete blame culture and no-one has to take any responsibility for themselves these days. I for one would have been more than happy to sign a piece of paper absolving all responsibility but not sure how legally binding that would be.

I do not work for the museum and I do not have a particular public opinion on what they should or should not be doing (there is of course an opinion of what I would love them to do but then everyone has one don’t they?) but I do appreciate the people that provide their own time to allow me to take a look at the facilities, they don’t have to.

The cost of putting a diver to work safely on the seabed will be dictated by many factors and is variable, but expect a four figure bill per day just to put the diver in the water. Some sites might only see a 20 minute window of opportunity for work every 12 hours. The risk assessment would probably dictate surface supply and comms/video feed. Plus the cost of cutting equipment or other tools. Any recovery will require a charter vessel capable of supporting both diving operations & lifting.

There are no short-cuts, and its expensive.

I am suprised there is talk about the Dorniers condition being worse than they thought as when I spoke to some guys at cosford they were saying it was actually in better condition than they thought it would be. They really only have the opportunity to clean/preserve some of the smaller items on public view and these are in v good condition.

I am sure I e-mailed at the time (was a number of years ago now) and they did already know about them but unfortunately they weren’t the right mark.

It would be interesting to hear others experiences with finding information about atc airframes at schhols. A couple of years ago I was searching for details on a particular airframe and contacted the school concerned. To be fair I got a reply with a copy of an old photograph but they said there was no other information, they couldnt even say where the hut was located. Any other tips where information may exist?