Pierre Pappy, no doubt we’ll all be keeping our fingers crossed for you and F-BGNJ. But in the meantime can you tell me:
– whether the aircraft is ever accessible to the public (and the same question applies to the Aéroscope collection of vintage aircraft kept in the hangars adjacent to it)?
– why the aircraft was moved, several years ago, from behind the GA hangars to the apron in front of the old hangars on the far side of the runway?
– if you are successful in obtaining permission to retain the aircraft in its present place, what is likely to happen to it when Nantes Airport relocates to Notre Dames des Landes next decade?
Hi avion_ancien,
Very good questions ! I’m gonna try to answer the best I can with my poor English:
– No, Our Connie is not accessible to the public and it is the same for the entire collection while the area is strictly prohibited. We use to have the keys to enter that zone but since september 2007, they change all the gate’s locks.
– The aircraft was moved there in may 2004 because we had all the authorisation to do it while the Airport Administrator plan to extend his parking area where the Connie was parked. At that time, that new area on the far side of the runway was reserved to our Museum project, the Aeroscope. The problem is that the area is civilian (Civil Aviation Ministry) and it is administrate by the army and the sale of the land would probably finance Notre Dame des Landes new International Airport…
– We don’t know at the present days what is going to happen to the Connie and our collection when Nantes Airport will be relocate in 2016 (maybe later).
The city of Bouguenais wants to have the cession of the land. If they have that land, they will give us the area and the Aeroscope project will surely born one day and the Connie will be preserved and visited by thousand of people. If they can not have that land, nobody knows whta’s going to happen !
That’s why we put a Petition to make react our Culture Ministry to do something while the Connie and a rare racer, the René Leduc RL21, are classified as Historic Monument by the ministry himself !
How lucky you are to live in UK or USA where the historic aircraft heritage is part of your mentality and all is done to help in aircraft preservation. How difficult it is here in France! What a shame….
By the way, we will continue to fight and try to win that battle !!
Thanks.
Pierre “Pappy”
Amicale du Super Constellation, Nantes – NTE LFRS
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