I wouldn’t call just under £100K in 24 hrs not getting many plegdes!!!!!!

As George (Chippie) says – a pledge is just that – a promise, but how legally binding is it, how ‘easy’ is it to get out of and how many will follow through with what they have said?

Cyncial?… moi?

This to me is all hot air – I believe it when I see it – and I suspect a miracle will happen in the next 24/48 hours!

Apart from the name-calling – which is childish and pathetic, come on guys, grow up please, this is not a school playground – there are numerous things that are both happening and being said here that concern me.

1 – why do so many here ‘hide’ behind ‘nicknames and aliases – especially those who claim to be authors? I’m me, I stand by what I have written and published – it bears my and my company’s name, mistakes, typo’s and all!

2 – 558PressOffice claims 30,000 members. Frankly, I find that figure incredible, having been around historical aviation groups and organisations for nearly 40 years and feel that to make those sort of claims for a single aircraft supporters group almost impossible to believe. However, if this claim has been over-stated, it goes a long way towards explaining the short-fall in member-income.

3 – The open letter from Robert Phleming – contains a number of statements that Mark Pilkington had identified and I also would certainly challenge:

a – ‘Vulcan XH558 will be grounded forever, unless further funding of £1million is identified by early March. This funding will allow the project to pay its monthly expenses, clear debt and provide a stable financial footing for the future. ‘… so do they NEED or just have to IDENTIFY £1M by early March? The first part suggests they NEED it – the latter part suggests the ‘desperation figure’ (my phrasing) is almost certainly less – how much less is certainly not clear, but I would say it is certain that they do not have to completely clear debt and provide a stable financial footing by their own self-imposed deadline of early March – or is there a lot more toxic items laying under the surface than has been revealed?

b – ‘Vulcan XH558 is not privately owned, but operated as a National Heritage Asset. She belongs to every man, woman and child in Britain and is an iconic and emotive example of Britain’s pivotal position in World technology and foreign affairs’ If the aircraft is not privately owned and belongs to everyone in the country as stated, that means it is State owned, which is clearly not the case. I am fairly certain ownership was transferred from the Waltons to a private trust, which is certainly NOT ‘quote’ She belongs to every man, woman and child in Britain ‘unquote’ – but then, belonging to and being owned by are two different things.

I would challenge the legality of that statement under the Trades Description Act, given that Phleming is appealing for finances, that I would suggest, given his letter, is perilously close to fraudulent trading activity.

c – ‘Please help us weather this economic Perfect Storm; we are working on a new business model aimed at avoiding this situation arising again next year’. What has changed in 2009 that is any different to 2008 for the better? As anyone in business knows, 2009 is going to be a whole lot tougher to survive than 2008 was – so why should ‘a new business model’ make things any different? This is just garbage ‘management-speak’ I expect to see an announcement that they are looking for for ‘a trading partner that provides synergy with our current symbiotic market position’!

I think what we are seeing in this letter is the underlying reasons why so many – including the HLF – have had the wool pulled over their eyes for so long. Clever manipulation of emotions by statements and claims that are not as their first appear. It would not surprise me now that the VOC manage to pull something out of the hat, and we are to face an ongoing series of even more appeals that get more and more strident until the final collapse.

As I have said before, I feel sorry for the workers and the folks who keep throwing their hard-earned fivers into collecting buckets – can anyone explain to me today WHY I should write out a cheque for £1,000 to this organisation if it is going down the pan?

Did it happen to have anything to do with the ground by any chance?
I hate to be sarcastic but the only way i see 558 flying this year is if VTS manage to materialise a miracle of epic proportions out of thin air in the next few days.

Maybe Phlegming should set themselves up as the Vulcan Bank of Bruntingthorpe – Gordon Broon would be certain to help him out then!

OK… I’ll try and answer this as best I can, and I hope I am not taking the thread too much off-topic – but the background to the script – and the movie – is complex. Again, to quote myself…

The Memphis Belle remake – released in 1990 – came about when in 1986, English film-maker David Puttnam, the new head of Columbia Pictures recruited William Wyler’s daughter Catherine as his new Senior Vice-President of Production, responsible for developing non-fiction properties for feature films. Catherine had previously had experience in television administration and production, first with Warner Brothers and then with the US Public Broadcasting Service.
In her new job, one of the development projects was a movie about Eighth Air Force bomber crews, similar to the 1943 film her father made. After a screening of the 1943 original, Puttnam asked Catherine to proceed further. As Catherine Wyler said in an interview after the film came out; ‘I’ve known about the Memphis Belle all my life because my father made the documentary during the war. It’s about the crew of a B-17 – the first crew to make twenty-five missions. And basically it’s the story of that twenty-fifth mission.

But it wasn’t – that’s one of the many myths that surround the aircraft, films and crew which is what we have tried to put straight in the book. To continue:

Puttnam’s career with Columbia was short-lived and in 1987 he returned to Great Britain. The Eighth Air Force project was not abandoned however, and he proposed that his own company, Enigma Films, take it on, and that Catherine Wyler join him as co-producer.
It might be worthwhile to explain here that ‘Producers’ have the final responsibility for all aspects of a film’s production. They are frequently the first to become involved in a project; they participate directly in all the main producing phases; and see the project through production, to post-production, marketing and distribution. The Producer’s role is to turn story ideas into profitable cinematic entertainment, and to persuade others to share in their commercial and creative vision. Producers usually report to the production company, or to the Executive Producers appointed to supervise the production on behalf of the financiers and Distributors. The ‘Director’ on the other hand, is the person who sets the tone of the movie and interprets the script as he sees it. They typically see the story as a whole and gives it their own stamp. They instruct the actors on how to say their lines, their facial expressions and tone. Virtually anything that happens on a movie set is subject to the approval of the Director. The final product is the direct result of decisions made by the director – therefore if it turns out wrong – blame the Director!
To make a movie, you need many things, one of the most obvious being a script, so young US playwright Monte Merrick was hired. As for the filming locations, they were dictated by the availability of aircraft and Catherine had located at least eight airworthy B-17s in the USA, including one owned by her uncle, restaurant chain owner David Tallichet and wartime B-17 pilot with the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk. It was initially proposed to film all airfield and aerial sequences in the USA, with studio work shot in England.
The Director was to be Michael Caton-Jones, who would be making his second movie after attending the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. Michael Jones had married Beverly Caton and they both changed their surnames to Caton-Jones. Puttnam’s instructions to Caton-Jones was simple: ‘Please – amaze me’!
Production Designer Stuart Craig and Associate Producer Eric Rattray scoured the USA to find suitable locations for filming – and even visited Memphis to see and measure up the real aircraft – but found nothing that satisfactorily represented either East Anglia and Bassingbourn. There were also problems with a number of the US-based B-17 operators refusing to accept the fees offered. Negotiations were then conducted with the operators of the three European-based B-17s with much more favourable results so, it was decided that if they could get two of the US B-17s flown over, then all the filming could be done in the UK.
Stuart Craig’s first task then was to find a main location site that could be used as a replacement for Bassingbourn, for that airfield had already been ruled out. By 1989 Station 121 was now an British Army Camp with associated access problems created by levels of security. It had lost at least 50% of its runways and what remained of the airfield site was being used as a training range and leisure area for the Army with an artificial ski-slope by the old 324th dispersals and a huge lake by the old bomb dumps! The remainder had either been returned to nature or used for agriculture. Predannack and St Eval airfields in Cornwall were considered but rejected as the surrounding landscape was not correct. Then Craig heard of the recently-vacated airfield at Binbrook in Lincolnshire. It had a similar layout to Bassingbourn, the same C-type hangars and was remote enough not to have modern developments close by. Permission was then sought and gained to use the Cambridgeshire County Council and Imperial War Museum airfield of Duxford as a base for all the main flying sequences, for it had all the engineering and technical facilities present that were essential to keep the aircraft flying.
Space inside a B-17 fuselage is somewhat at a premium – there is certainly not enough room for the actors and a film crew, so a complete mock-up interior that could be split into six sections was built by Bill Welch and his team at Pinewood. This mock-up was to incorporate as many pieces of authentic equipment as possible.
In addition to the B-17s, the script called for a number of enemy and Allied fighter types. The Luftwaffe could only be represented by a number of Hispano Buchons, Spanish-built versions of the Messerschmitt Bf-109s but fitted with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines which gave a different nose profile. Enigma decided to use P-51 Mustangs as fighter escorts.

The script went through many stages – I have four distinct versions on file and there was a myriad of detailed ‘re-writes’. Enigma employed a number of ‘Historical Advisors’, including Roger Freeman and the finished movie contains what is best called a ‘montage’ of events that ‘may’ have happened to 8th Air Force crews – to say that they happened to the ‘real’ crew over the 25 missions, is incorrect, if only because the aircraft never actually flew 25 combat missions!

Incidentally, we interviewed William Wyler who made the original 1943 movie before his death and discovered that it was never really intended to be a feature film – nor was it to feature the aircraft or the 91st BG! Quoting myself again:

In Wyler’s files there are two film outlines; one called ‘Rendez-VoUS’ that was to be a joint US/RAF film story. The second is a draft script from Beirne Lay’s 8th Air Force Film Unit dated October 11th 1942 that was revised November 23rd 1942. titled ‘Phyllis was a Fortress’. This, we have discovered, is linked to an article published a few days later after the the date of the draft script – on Monday, Oct. 19, 1942 – by TIME Magazine called ‘Phyllis the Fortress’. The article detailed a USAAF raid some time earlier on the Potez aircraft factory in Meaulte, France when some 30 German fighter aircraft had fiercely attacked this B-17, forcing the pilot, Charles Paine to belly-land it at an airfield in England.
The draft script and subsequent TIME article were both subject to wartime censorship, but it has been possible to discover that the events identified as to a raid that took place on October 2nd. One participant was the 301st BG, who had 41-24397 named Phyllis assigned to the 352nd BS, 301st BG at Chelveston. On this day the aircraft crash-landed at RAF Gatwick – now London Gatwick Airport – while being flown by Lt Charles Paine Jnr, where the nose had to be cut off to release a crewman. 16 cannon shell and over 200 bullet holes were later counted in the aircraft.
On November 4th Wyler wrote to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Eighth Air Force: ‘Among the Film Unit’s plans for future production is a film based on the experiences of Lt Charles Paine and crew of B-17F (‘Phylis’) on the bombing mission to the Potez factory at Meaulte, Occupied France, on 3rd October 1942. The scenario for such a film is now in preparation and when in satisfactory form will be submitted to the Command for approval. Actual production can begin as soon as adequate equipment and personnel become available.
It seems that Wyler was still looking around for projects – and whether it was the difficulties in re-creating the entire Phyllis incident or his failure in stopping the crew being transferred to the 12th Air Force – that movie was never made.

And even that was not the end of the story – For many months what eventually emerged as the ‘Memphis Belle Movie’ was going to be a 10-minute documentary ‘short’ called ’25 Missions’. It was not until well into the editing process that the length was extended to 43 minutes, and it was not until the finished film was shown to President Roosevelt that the name was finally changed to ‘Memphis Belle’.

If that is not attractive to the powers-that-be, then it may have to end with an unfortunate ‘accident’ and a big insurance claim :diablo:

stranger things have been said (and happened) in jest!

Oh please – do not think I am saying anything other than the team at the sharp end of this project have done an AMAZING job getting 558 back in the air!

Much kudos and respect goes to all the engineers and techie specialists that have done such a sterling job against all the odds.

As for the aircraft departing these shores and flying in America – I just cannot see it. Setting aside for one moment whether or not there IS an American interesting in buying it – and the whole can of worms as to where that money would go, considering the aircraft is supposedly owned by a trust, yet millions of public funds have been invested in it – there’s still the question of getting over there.

I assume the aircraft has been currently operating on some kind of United Kingdom permit to fly, or restricted Certificate overseen by the CAA. THAT means that the ‘final say’ would be with them them for the aircraft to be cleared to depart Bruntingthorpe (oh how I do hate that horrible abbreviation of ‘Brunty’) and operate within UK airspace.

The aircraft has not flown for some months, so any sane pilot would require a certain amount of shakedown flying before setting out on a 9-12 hour transatlantic and given the problems a certain Shackleton had a good number of years back getting the nod to go transatlantic and given the public declaration that the VOC is close to going into receivership, that begs the question, where would the money come from for the ‘pre-delivery’ flights?

I cannot see the CAA granting permission for a bankrupt or near-bankrupt company – or an overseas owner to let a potentially non-airworthy aircraft penetrate British airspace. Or let a US N(experimental) aircraft take to the skies for a 9-12 hour transatlantic right of the chocks.

That means the only way would be dismantled in sections, which kind of defeats the object of restoration to flight in the first place!

All of this is supposition – from all of us, simply because the VOC Admin have COMPLETELY failed in their responsibility to keep everyone informed as to what was going on, the status and progress. What is more, the engineers, techies and grass-roots fund-raisers – the workers in other words – have been completely let down by the Administrators for a completely shambolic public-relations and promotional campaign – or lack of it.

What is worse though, is that those same people have probably irrepairably damaged the UK historic aircraft preservation movement as far as future LHF funding is concerned – and they will probably ride off into the sunset saying – ‘ah well we tried but we was let down by the public/goverment/LHF’… not seeing that it was really their own fault!

So come the end of the month and the plug is pulled – the permission to fly is revoked – what then? no money, cannot pay the hangar fees….

I would really LOVE to be proved wrong – but somehow I cannot see it… what a waste!

Here’a a couple more for ya!