This is not intended to be a dig at anybody but Tangemere1940 is right when he says you can have too many aerojumbles in a year.
The old saying goes that “you can have too much of a good thing” and both the model car world and the antiques world seem to have learnt this the hard way.
In the 90’s there was an antiques fair within reasonable travelling distance almost every weekend and the same applied to toy / model collectors fairs where there were often mid week evening fairs as well as the weekend ones.
The organisers made hay while the sun shone and happily relieved stallholders of their cash but collectors don’t have a bottomless pocket of cash to spend on their hobby or on admission fees and inevitably fewer and fewer punters attended each fair and stallholders takings gradually dwindled.
The other side of the coin was that many dealers were attending 3 or 4 shows a week and simply couldn’t acquire interesting saleable stock fast enough to make their displays look fresh at each fair. Once collectors realised that they were seeing much the same stock at each fair they had even less inclination to attend.
Now Toy Fairs in my area are a comparative rarity with 4 big fairs a year in Brentwood and another small local one every few weeks and still I hear that many stallholders find it difficult to make a reasonable profit partly because of cut pricing of new items and also because the recession means that there are fewer collectors in total and those that are still around have less disposable income than they had in the past.
Antique fairs are also few and far between but those that do continue are generally better organised with better quality goods than the old days.

A few good quality aerojumbles each year should mean good qualty interesting stock for buyers and hopefully good takings for sellers which in turn means the organiser will be encouraged to continue to run the show.

Thanks Bager1968. I was so surprised to see the picture that I didn’t look at the posting date. I. along with Stan and David Brett and some of the other volunteers were quite regular visitors to the remains of the Scion when it was derelict (as shown in the photo) so it brought back a lot of memories.
Amazingly I first met Guildman (who bumped the thread) around 30 years ago when we were both involved in the model car industry. We lost contact fo a very long time and only recent got in touch again through a model car forum. It can be a very small world.

Coincidentally, I too was looking for another slide when I came across this one of the remains of G-AEZF. I took the photo at Southend on 27 May 1972, I was there representing “Aviation News” at the official opening of the Historic Aircraft Museum.

Your picture shows the Scion beside the old Tradair hangar around the time the hangar was being cleared following the demise of Channel Airways. The fuselage is complete in your picture but it couldn’t have been too long afterwards that someone cut the fuselage in two and drove a tractor over the wings which must be laying somewhere in all the grass and weeds a short distance from the fuselage and probably behind you when you took the photo.
The hangar with the light blue door is part of a two blocks of hangars for light aircraft, part of which was rented by the museum. Much of the restoration work on Proctor NP303/G-ANZJ was carried out in that hangar and it also housed the Fiat G46 until it was moved to the museum for repaint and assembly prior to the opening. Tiger Moth G-APMM and Stampe F-BDFE which were owned by the museum but never displayed were also stored in this hangar in pieces. The incomplete brick building, in the background, is the back of the Airport Motel – now The Skylark Hotel and the museum building can just be made out between the incomplete brick building and the light aircraft hangar.
The museum had looked at the Scion and reckoned it wasn’t worth saving. I later saw the fuelage in two pieces behind the museum hangar after it was saved by the East Anglian Aviation Society but I wasn’t aware that the wings had survived and have always assumed they were either removed by the scrappie who cleared the hangar or may be still lurking in the long grass 40 years later.
The parts that we could have saved would probably be regarded as a viable long term restoration project now but in those days we had neither the resources or skills to believe that it was restorable.
I have always regretted that so little thought was given to saving EZF at that time and although it still fights for survival I always view it as one that got away.
Thanks for publishing the pic. It brought back many memories. There was a photo of David Brett, myself and 2 or 3 other museum volunteers standing on the floor inside the Scion frame with most of us wearing oxygen masks. I am sure Stan Brett took the photo so it may well survive in his photo collection.

Am I being unfair or has this one possibly got the decimal point in the wrong place?
It does seem a bit optimistic to me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251168387126?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

At a guess the cost of restoring any of the aircraft still kept by the Arden family would exceed their current market value once restored so they are only likely to be of interest to a dedicated enthusiast who loves pre war light aeroplanes. They are also likely to decay even more the longer they are stored.
Seems they are in a similar situation as a certain Supermarine Swift. The Swift has, at last, found a good home so let’s hope that one day common sense prevails and we see the Surrey AL1 and the others back in the air again.
The AL1 wouldmake a great addition to the flight line at Old Warden although I appreciate that acquiring another obscure pre war light aircraft probably isn’t their first priority at present.

“Ballerina” – last time I saw that (many years ago) it flew through a hedge and slid across a field without its undercarriage. I assumed at the time that the damage was terminal, so it is nice to be proved wrong.

Ballerina N22C / G-ARUL was extensively damaged during an air race at Halfpenny Green in 1966 and was declared a write off. There is a picture of the wreck on the Air Britain ABPIC site. Apart from her UK air race career Ballerina was also flown in the World Aerobatic Championships by Neil Williams – almost certainly the only F1 air racer to ever compete in WAC.
The remains were bought by Paul Bannister who spent many years basically building pretty much a new Ballerina using the original parts as templates. Paul wanted everything to be the best possible and I understand that he remade some parts a second time because he didn’t think his first effort was good enough. Some of the parts he rejected were used by Robin Voice in the constuction of G-BAER “Filly” (named after his wife Philomena who was one of the Tiger Club “wingwalkers” at air shows). Le Vier had also built a lot of extra parts when they built the 3 original Cosmic Winds. At least some of the cache of extra parts came to the UK with Ballerina and Robin also acquired some of the parts for “Filly”. Robin sold “Filly” a while ago and she is now under rebuild with her new owner.
By the time Paul Bannister had completed the new Ballerina he felt he was too old to go air racing and sold her on. She landed up with an owner who paid a crew to trailer her between air race meetings. The regular dismantling took its toll on the eyes for the spar pin and eventually they became too worn to be safe. Pete Kynsey bought her and managed to work out an acceptable repair so that Ballerina II could fly again.
The remains of the original Ballerina are with someone else at Duxford and I understand the remains of “Minnow – N21C” (which has a varied history) are also in the UK with a well known display pilot assuming that “Minnow” hasn’t moved on.
During the late 60’s/early 70’s the other original Cosmic Wind N20C “Little Toni” spent some time in the UK as G-AYRJ but returned to the USA long ago. I believe Little Toni still survives awaiting rebuild in the USA leaving Ballerina II as the only current flyer in the world.
The main visual difference between the rebuild (known as Ballerina II) and the original is that the rebuild has smooth skinned control surfaces whereas the originals as built by Le Vier had fluted control surfaces.
Although not strictly a Le Vier built Cosmic Wind Ballerina II is as beautiful as any other Cosmic Wind and I am sorry to say that I haven’t managed to be in the right place at the right time to see her fly yet.
I first saw a picture of Ballerina when I was 12 years old and it triggered a lifelong fascination with the Cosmic Wind which so far has lasted 45 years. It was and probably always will be one of the prettiest racers ever built.

The following link is to the index of a history of all Sea Fury survivors.

http://http://www.warbirdregistry.org/furyregistry/furyregistry.html

It is not unusual for the Unlimited Racers to be built from parts of 2 or 3 airframes which then assume the identity of one of those airframes.
Furias is a “bitza” combining parts from at least 3 aircraft.
I am sure I also read that Sanders Bros were never very fussy about keeping the parts of one airframe together and simply used any bits they regarded as suitable for each Sea Fury build regardless of their origin. For instance I am pretty sure that it was stated in another thread that the original fuselage of WG655 is still stored with the Sanders Bros but the aircraft is flying in the UK.
The home page for the website of Critical Mass states that she is now being returned to stock configuration and that the original wings that have been clipped have been traded with another air race team for their spare set which are still standard so some of the Sea Furies are a bit like Trigger’s broom ie totally original other than one or two changes of fuselage and wings.

Last night’s local paper said that some councillors have been wanting to get rid of the airshow for several years because they felt it had become jaded.
Apparently the main complaint from the public in recent years has been that there aren’t enough fast jets to be entertaining which tends to infer that there is a significant section of the non-enthusiast public that don’t appreciate or understand vintage / classic aircraft.
Another reason was that the council had a huge bill for extra policing even when they moved the airshow to Saturday and Sunday. The policing bill when the show included a bank holiday was even higher.
The council also claim that the show was unpopular with many local traders who felt it caused disruption and damaged trade at a time when they would have been busy anyway. The High Street traders in particular reckon that customers stay away on airshow weekend due to problems finding somewhere to park to go shopping.
Although I have lived in and around Southend all my life I haven’t been to the airshow for many years. The last time I visited getting in and out by train was like being in a rugby scrum and, with the exception of the Vulcan, the display hadn’t looked that attractive. Personally I have preferred to try to save up and go to an airfield display.
I am sorry to see the display finish but it did need a revamp and at a time when money is tight the Council just don’t have the budget to do much to improve the show.