Logistically although difficult its not impossible to move a Shackleton by road. It wouldn’t be the first time its happened and I’ll venture that if WR963 did move she wouldn’t be the last one either. If anything is at a shortage it would be manpower, but we have had several offers of help on that front from various other groups.

For the moment we’re okay to stay where we are, but getting visitors on site is bit of a problem. Midland Air Museum are a great bunch of people, but they can’t really accomodate WR963 as she is, both in terms of room and in that she is live in most respects. Even if she were outside their boundary fence to be accesible, I doubt the airport would be happy at the risk posed.

nostalgair brought up an interesting point though which I hadn’t thought of (I’m still thinking to some extent of things as they are now.) the hangars at Coventry are going to be empty in the next few months. I wonder what the going rate would be for space?

Peter,

I believe so, and it might happen once everythings settled at Coventry, but thats some months away yet.

Hi all – just to let you know we’re still at it working away on WR963. There’s a lot of hard work going on off site to start some serious fundraising now that we’ve lost the visitor numbers we’ve enjoyed for a while. Coventry seems to have lost a little of its spirit though and its taking us a little while to find our stride again.

Anyway, I have something I’d like to throw up for discussion…

Several times recently I’ve sat and thought about what we’re doing. With the Airbase collection moving away from Coventry you can’t help but question the reason for WR963 remaining. Also, is there a point to continuing to run WR963, rather than looking at the possibility of getting her tucked up nice and warm indoors at a national museum?

Without being part of something bigger it sometimes feels to me like we’re just trying to prolong the inevitable decline by keeping the engines running at great cost both monetary and in parts. As public access is severely limited now there’s little enjoyment to gain if no-one can see what we’re doing with a largely static aircraft in the middle of a lonely airport.

I feel there are two options open in the near future.

One will be to seek a permanent retirement home for WR963, as support at Coventry Airport will become harder to find for efforts as they are. Honour the ‘Preservation’ part of our groups title, which isn’t really about turning Avgas into noise however satisfying it is.

Two is to take the step that everyone seems to keep avoiding, and look at getting a Shackleton in the air again. There has been several attempts to get a Shackleton to fly in the past; with each attempt chipping away at the known issues and red tape and getting that one step closer, but never to the desired end result.

I’m going to seek a meeting with the Trustees with regard to both options (flight and true retirement) as time is ticking on – but I would welcome thoughts. Do you think it can be done? If not why not? What would be your concerns? Do you think it time for WR963 to bow out gracefully?

Please bear in mind these are NOT the official views of the SPT, just the thoughts of one person within it.

Kind regards,

Rich