Globally, every ‘museum’ has funding issues and from what I can gather DAS has greater problems than many, because as far as I am aware they are not a ‘museum’ as such but a ‘collection’ as effectively tenants within a larger museum set-up.
Again, from the personal viewpoint of an outsider – but one who has had meetings with the current group – myself and others met with Chairman David Garside and Director David Norman on 23rd May of this year with the purpose of discussing with the new management of DAS the current situation with regards to the Dan Air donated aircraft, with particular interest in the Ambassador. We also wanted to make DAS aware of our offer of assistance in any background information they might require.
David Garside gave a run down on the DAS current position. He said that when he took over, DAS was in a very poor state of health and things looked very touch and go for its survival. Considerable changes have since taken place and the outlook is now much healthier. However revenue from Imperial War Museum in 2011 was down on previous years and measures are in hand to address this.
He went on to say that they now have a good relationship with the IWM but it had clearly been a hard task to get where they are now. They have no hangar so have to negotiate with IWM for cover – they had to take the Ambassador out of the hangar as IWM needed the space, so life isn’t easy for them.
One area that DAS have worked hard on is to improve their identity on the Duxford site and to this end they have produced a very professional brochure entitled “The British Airliner Collection at IWM Duxford”. Its cover has the new logo which will be on all future society notices, staff badges etc., etc… The brochure has a foreward written by Richard Ashton, Director IWM and an introduction written by David Garside, Chairman DAS. It is followed by detailed history of each of the aircraft that have been donated to DAS (12 in all): Avro York, De Havilland Dove, Handley Page Herald, Handley Page Hermes (fuselage only), Ambassador, Vickers Viscount, De Havilland Comet, Bristol Britannia, Handley Page Herald, Vickers VC10, Hawker Siddeley Trident, BAC 1-11 and Concorde 101. This brochure will be on sale in the IWM shop at a price around £5.
At that time David Garside told us that they were still trying to discover what they had in terms of aircraft parts, equipment, documentation and memorabilia – and to sort it into categories- don’t want, duplication and what to retain or sell. They have a considerable collection of manuals and memorabilia to wade through, all donated by well-meaning people and it would seem not to have been well-controlled in the past. They were working through it all, but it was going to be a lengthy task.
Clearly, things have progressed since then and DAS are making a start on rationalising what they have – this is something that many other museums around the world do, and can be of benefit in funding both preservation and restoration.
I left the meetings with a clear impression that current 2012 team running DAS are professional and approachable – I wish them well for the future!
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