The very fabric of the environment you visit can have a huge impact. Of particular note, obviously, are Hendon, Duxford, Old Warden, places in which the location can not be separated from the collection. The RAF Museum located anywhere other than Hendon, a place synonymous with the growth of the RAF, is to me unthinkable. I really like the idea of all musea explaining their reason for being, and linking that to a collection policy. I think that would be a huge step forward.

True, though I guess over here we have not been around long enough 🙂 The Museum group’s original and still current mission statement is “To acquire, preserve, restore and display Australia’s rich aviation history” so in a way we could really be plonked anywhere – some would suggest being on the original Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation factories site, but thats a bit of an industrial quagmire.

Personally, I am not a fan of landmark architecture.

I came around to it a while back, when wanting to attract visitors (I’m coming from the Museum’s perspective here) you do want to have something that stands out if possible. A hangar is great, but sometimes you need an additional facade to draw them in at the front. That’s what I am investigating at the moment for our new Museum. Agree the aircraft themselves are fine in a hangar though, makes sense really 🙂

What do we ant to see inside Musea? Personally I like the story telling aspect, I like interactivity, I like things which motivate people to want to learn and discover more. It is the future. I’m guessing that most of us on here are the wrong side of 40 and anything we can do now to encourage younger generations to develop an interest has to beneficial to the preservation movement as a whole.

Agrees, there are many stories to be told and they need to be preserved for future generations. Interactivity does not always have to be playing with touchscreens and flashy buttons. Sometimes as I mentioned earlier, letting the visitors sit in the cockpits and experience things is exactly what they want. The Viscount is a perfect example. Walk in from the rear, there are storyboards with photos and memorablila at the rear, then moving forward you can sit in one of the half dozen rows of seats (oh my the legroom !!! – sadly not original seats, they are from a BaE) and then through the walkway towards the cockpit – illuminated displays behind perspex of mannequins in the different hostie outfits of the era, then onto the cockpit which has heaps of the indicators, lights and dimmers working. And the fire alarm bell which has seen a few jump out of the pilot seat! Is this a security risk or theft risk? Of course, but you have to relax things just a little and put an element of trust in visitors, not everyone coming in wants to pinch something. Most of the visitors are families etc. Plus the notion of damage has been surprisingly reduced since we turned the lights on, kids are actually wary of pushing things, thinking it may actually start up 😀 But the younger ones are coming in and showing a real interest in restoring and working on the aircraft. We have gone from two or three people doing things on a Saturday to up to 40 on good weather days, and at least eight or nine of them are under 18.

An interesting point was raised about a benign dictatorship. I thought the BAPC had some kind of National Register to record the significance of each individual airframe. Perhaps some kind of framework could be built around that

Interesting you mention that. Without getting into too much backstory, there has been a push over the last couple of decades to found a National, government funded aviation Museum, based on a report from 1974. However successive governments have shown little interest and while the plan has been raised a few times since, it’s dead in the water and will not get going. Reason being is that each state has its own functioning aviation museum that is operating well and has it’s own specific collections. Not one of them are going to give up any aircraft to go into a national collection. Politics aside, these museums founded the Aviation Museums National Network and we have an annual forum to discuss many things. One thing we support is the funding by government but in a decentralised manner, ie if you wish to fund, do so but allow us to divvy it up among ourselves. That of course raises a whole load of other questions for another time, but we are trying to work together to achieve this goal.
As to the register, the ANMM have also commenced a National Significance Register based on our most important aircraft in our collections.Our Museums former Secretary had looked into getting a couple of ours on the State Register, however we threw that idea out after discovering if that went ahead then we would need a permit to drill out a rivet….. ah bureaucracy!

Great discussion though, lots of food for thought from both sides of the story 🙂

Interesting thread. I’ll chuck in my two bobs worth from down under, at least from our perspective.

Our Museum like many is 100% volunteer based, so have limited funds to allocate to things. When the current management was elected in November 2013, the place resembled a junkyard, we had literally $20 left in the bank and visitor and member numbers at all time lows…

Jump to now, solvent, the highest number of members ever, and visitor numbers increasing all the time, with the added bonus of meeting a number of pilots etc as outlined in another thread. And what is pleasing is the number of younger members and volunteers, to the point where we have just kicked off a small youth training program to teach a small group the basics of restoration of aircraft, some basic metalwork and tooling too.
We had to really go in hard and sort out the place. This meant making things safer, cleaning up in general, bringing aircraft back to live (yes that includes the Beau) but having to sit down and really think about a few things……

What sets the Museum apart from so many places now is the fact we happily let people into the cockpits, even some that are not always accessible. We allow people up close, we see no point in barricading things off (other than the F-111 module but that’s part of the loan agreement) And time and time again visitors say how great it is to get up to the props of a dormant aircraft, take pics, touch, feel and experience.

Being in a sodding great tin shed means its never going to look brilliant, but I have worked tirelessly this year to secure grant funding to replace the fluro lights with proper LED highbays, to provide museum grade LED lighting in our new WW1 Gallery, and various other cosmetic changes. Outdoors is always going to be an uphill battle, we are less than 5kms from the sea, so there is always ozone and the like. But the outdoor ones had not been cleaned in 10+ years so we are doing that now. It does make a difference. When we finally move in a few years (once we find the sugar daddy who can pay for it !) it will be into a purpose built facility, three times the size of what we have and everything will be indoors.New proper placarding is slowly being added but again, when a 15cmx15cm perspex info placard costs around $180 we can only do so many at a time. All items are part of sub collections and we endeavour to outline that to help visitors understand. We have built the first stage of an interactive guide you can listen to on your phone/pad/thingy while wandering around, and that has extra pics and sound grabs etc.

As to the collection, I am of the view we are somewhat overburdened, and indeed for a few years a lot of outsiders could not believe the place was still acquiring frames that nothing could be done with. I guess we are lucky that we have loaned out around eight aircraft for the next few years at least, which frees up some space. But then we haev had a few new arrivals as well this year, the biggest being a nine metre forward section of a 737-200. This was not within our standard collection policy but as it was complete (and will be switched back on to show lighting etc) and it was going to be scrapped otherwise, it was something we would not pass up. As it stands now, it’s paid for its initial investment in just over three months.

When items are donated, everyone is required to sign a form stating we have clear title. This gives us the option to sell on or trade with another museum if the need arises. And we have certainly done so. Of course there have been a couple of near misses too – the most spectacular being nearly putting what is believed widely to be the Red Baron’s Fokker Fuel tank up on eBay. Came within 5 minutes of doing so…. However we have a collection policy framework in place, and the above suggestions of having a condensed version online is indeed excellent. I will look into that as it will help people understand the method in our madness (or is it the other way around)

The one key matter that the Chairman and myself keep re iterating to people is a simple one but is also indicative of the level of change and approach. We treat the place as a business first and foremost, it is then an entertainment complex, finally a museum – thats bound to irritate some but if the place was going to move forward from where it was two years ago it was the only way to do so. It is not just a community gathering house for a few people to tinker round with planes and chat (though by golly I love doing that!) it is something for everyone to enjoy and we, as the Museum and the volunteers are only too aware of everyone coming in the door, and want to make the time enjoyable for them.

I’ve probably gone off on all manner of tangents, so my apologies, but hopefully this gives a little insight into how we operate and our approach. If it helps someone thats great, if not, no drama, happy to share the info anyway 🙂

Cheers

#6 is Beaufort and possibly early Beaufighter, certainly Beaufort, for memory a hydraulic sequencing valve to do with the undercarriage. Got a box of them stored away somewhere 🙂

Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far. Pretty impressive, just over $11K in a week raised.

For those who would like to help, simply visit our website, or http://www.pozible.com/project/195714 where you can get some goodies in return.

Given how awful the exchange rate is, for those in the UK, a $5AUD donation will set you back the almighty sum of 2.54GBP and yet it will speed things along for us. Be great if you can give us a hand, yes it’s a US design, Australian built aircraft, but hey, we are all volunteers and need all the help we can get to preserve any aircraft !

Cheers for now 🙂

Its a pastoral company or similar owned by Peter Smythe. He has a few projects that are mentioned on the Facebook page but other than that I don;t know much more. Phil/Daniel here is apparently acting as his PR so he could fill you in more…..

Peter was involved in a well known ebay legal dispute some years back – google eBay wirraway case for the history.