WJ244A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone who contributes to making this forum a great place to visit where, according to my other half, I waste hours and hours of my time talking to other old farts about dusty old aeroplanes.
She reckons if I had the same besotted look in my eye when I look at her as I do when I look at Old Warden’s Blackburn Monoplane when it is flying then she would actually believe that I love her just as much as I love aircraft!
WJ244Great to see that someone was finally able to agree a price for her and is prepared to lavish time and money to have her restored properly. It looks like this one will be well worth seeing when she is finished.
WJ244Haven’t been to IWM Lambeth for a long time but I do remember that on my first visit in about 1968/69 I was disappointed at the layer of dust on both the Spitfire and Heinkel 162 and I remember thinking that the Spitfire looked generally scruffy but I didn’t realise it was still in original late war paint. I thought there was a V1 on a section of launching ramp under the Spitfire at that time or is my memory playing tricks?
I too would like to see her kept in the original paint with a general sympathetic clean up and maybe a bit of gentle tin bashing to tidy up the bits and pieces that have got knocked around during her time as a museum piece.
WJ244I don’t know which model you have built but if you were thinking of using it as a guide for the shape of the S6B it may be helpful to know that modelmakers in the 70’s reckoned that both the Frog and Airfix kits were wrong. It was usually suggested that if you cut each model in half and used the tail section of one with the nose of the other you would have a pretty accurate S6B. Problem is I can’t remember whether it was the front half of the Airfix kit with the rear half of the Frog kit or vice versa.
WJ244My thoughts are with the Mods, particularly as they are volunteers as well as with those who are currently banned. It must have been a weekend from hell for the Mods dealing with the fallout from a difficult situation where they had no control over what happened. This is a great forum and let’s hope that Monday will see the situation resolved in a way that works for everyone.
WJ244I would like to add my thanks to all those who have contributed to this thread.
Until a couple of years ago I hadn’t visited Duxford for a long time even though it isn’t too far away. It was largely the postings on this thread that made me realise just what I was missing out on and I have visited at least 6 times in the past 2-3 years. Without this thread I doubt that I would have found the time or money to make those visits so the thread has had a positive effect on the takings at Duxford and I am sure there are others here who have been similarly inspired by this thread.
I am really looking forward to the new year and hope that the regular postings covering all the news at Duxford will continue.
WJ244I have to agree that the permanent banning of the 3 forum members involved would be a huge loss to the forum but I also understand the position of Key and the moderators although it is very sad that Key were put in a situation where they felt obliged to act as they did.
I can’t comment on the specific thread which caused problems because I wasn’t following it closely although I do remember clicking on it during the early postings. From the comments of others here it seems that a good few forum members had not been following that particular thread either which suggests that any comments made there may have had rather less impact than the aggrieved party chooses to believe.
I must admit that I had initially assumed that it was the Burma Spitfire thread that had caused problems and I was a little surprised at some of the postings on that thread and did feel that the parties involved in the potential recovery could have taken offence. Equally I assumed that much of it was “tongue in cheek”, (particularly as one contributor had already said that he was visiting Burma in the new year to cover the discovery for part 2 of the famous book) and had been fueled by the way the publicity for the Burma Spitfires “discovery” had been handled. After all I think most of us expected much more than we got from the recent press conference which many enthusiasts would probably have described as disappointing.
I really hope that the Burma Spitfire saga has a good outcome for those involved as some have obviously sunk a good deal of their own money and /or time into the project.
I haven’t had a great deal of contact with any of the banned forum members but “Mark12” was kind enough to take the time to post some pictures of the Battle of Britain film aircraft that participated in a display at Debden when I asked and also helped with some information on some Spitfire remains which I saw many years ago at Southend clearing up something which had puzzled me for many years and I really appreciate the fact that he made time to provide me with information.
Let’s hope that this problem gets resolved quickly, the 3 members are reinstated as soon as possible and that none of them choose to walk away permanently as their loss will make this forum a much poorer place.
WJ244The Guild of Aviation Artists might be worth a try. I don’t know for certain but I should think he is/was a member so they may be able to put you in touch.
WJ244I think DAS need congratulating for their work in restoring and maintaining all their airliners. Most museums, understandably, tend to concentrate on smaller, more manageable and mainly military aircraft and it is to their credit that they have continued to maintain the collection when faced with all the difficulties of keeping them outside.
In one way it is great to see them outside as it does mean you can stand back and take in their size and beauty but at the same time there must be a limit to the amount of time they can spend outside before it becomes impossible to stop the decay so let’s hope they get a roof over their heads at some time.
WJ244Southend Council sold off a long disused corner of Southend airport, near the railway, in the 80’s and allowed the developer to build a retail park. As part of the recent airport expansion they built a new railway station specifically for the airport. This in turn meant they wanted a new terminal building near the railway. The land sold off 30 years ago would have been ideal for the terminal or car parks. They now need to expand the new terminal and are having to shoehorn everything onto a comparatively small piece of land.
The new terminal meant a new access road which has to share a roundabout with the access road for the retail park and, particularly at weekends it is almost impossible to get into or out of the airport due to queues of traffic trying to get in and out of the retail park.
The terminal expansion also means that eventually, the Southend Vulcan may lose it’s hardstanding (which the group financed themselves) to make way for a car park although it is not certain that this will happen during the current phase. Have talked to members of the group at their last open day they said that the airport management are generally supportive of the Vulcan but if/when they have to move they are more likely to be found a home within the engineering area and it is possible that they may have to pay to finance and build another hardstanding at any new site. If the retail park area had never been developed it is likely that the Vulcan could have remained in it’s present location and with the right finance could have been the centrepiece of a small aviation based attraction with the bonus of being near the terminal which could have helped in attracting visitors.
A classic example of the council selling the family silver for short term gain and causing problems in the long term.
WJ244Of course.
But remember the often-present “unintended consequences” of well-meaning laws, rules and regulations.
Bureaucracy doesn’t leave much room for “common sense”…rules are rules whether they make sense in particular applications or not.There are plenty of examples out there, many/most of which aren’t favorable to warbirds and old aircraft.
I agree – By a common sense approach I meant that the bureaucrats need to realise that there are many occassions when shipping “weapons” between countries (particularly older “weapons”) doesn’t mean that they are moving to be sold for war-like purposes and this should be taken into account when the legislation is written but, of course, that is unlikelty to happen and will, almost inevitably, lead to problems for museums and private owners of historic “weapons”.
The story of some of the “Biafra” airframes is covered in the book “Shadows” but I don’t doubt there are many other stories which, unfortunately, can’t be told in a public place.
WJ244Some of the “Biafra warbirds” were allowed to leave the UK on temporary export permits which meant they should have been back here within 30 days. Not surprisingly some didn’t return although ultimately many didn’t actually make it all the way to Biafra either due to other problems en route.
The above highlights how difficult it would be to police temporary licences. Quite apart from the policing difficulties there would be reams of paperwork involved and the processing cost would almost certainly be passed on to the person applying for the temporary export licence.
There is also the question of what qualifies as a military weapon. Will a WW2 warbird flying to a show in Europe, a WW2 tank returning to France for a commemoration event or an old Motor Torpedo Boat returning to Dunkirk for the anniversary be classed as a military weapon. If so there will either be huge amounts of paperwork to process and owners will need bottomless pockets to pay licence fees or no one will move anything outside of their own country.
It is understandable that governments want to monitor the movement of weapons but there needs to be a common sense approach when it comes to historic aircraft vehicles, ships and other weapons.
WJ244I knew Stan and David well. They did a lot to encourage me as a teenager at the Southend museum. Stan was the first person I met at Southend. He rode a BSA Bantam to get to work and not long after we met he had an accident which wrote off the bike. He promised me the wreck as I was building a trials Bantam with my dad and I desperately needed a rear wheel. Stan turned up one day with the wheel and explained that the insurance company gave him the wreck back and deducted a fiver from his insurance settlement. The wheel was free as he knew how much I needed one but he said rather apologetically that if I wanted the rest (including a good engine) he needed a fiver. My dad gladly gave him a fiver but the fact that he was generous enough to offer the wheel for free was typical of Stan. They worked tirelessly at Southend on the Mitchell N9089Z (which was very much their baby) even spending their holidays camped out in a small tent with a hole in the ground for a toilet before the building went up. It was a pleasure to have known them.
I know WhitleyProject had a reason for wanting to find Stan and David and the only other person I can think of who might be bale to help WhitleProject is Bob Day who was a helper at Southend and used to own a DKW Munga. If anyone can supply contact details for Bob perhaps they could pass them on.
I did make some enquiries about Stan and David’s photo collection but had no luck although I believe another forum member had been able to track it down.
WJ244I was as guilty of being a smart alec but I honestly had no idea what was meant by flying wires on a Pembroke. Had he been selling a Deperdussin or even a Tiger Moth the term would have made far more sense.
WJ244Those TFC guys are back to there old tricks again!
Don’t know about old tricks but this gent looked very guilty so he was obviously up to something.
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