longshot: Is that a Venom tucked in the buildings just behind that round pool?
A Vanguard too, don’t recall many of them…. And the open air “Museum” Aaah
A Lanc, Sea Hawk and is that a Sea Fury airframe at the front in photo 2 with 826 on the fuselage? What became of them? Did they get into the Museum?

The Vampire is WZ458 which belonged to 1312 sqdn ATC.
The view of the museum aircraft from the front shows Lincoln RF342/G-APRJ, Mitchell N9089Z/HD368 and Anson TX211/G-AVHU. The very sorry looking fuselage in front of the Lincoln is Fairchild Argus G-AJOZ/FK338 which later moved on to NAPS (I think). By the time the museum opened they had landed up with 3 Ansons and TX211 being in far worse condition than the others ended her days on the fire dump. G-AGPG from Ekco was retained and G-AVVO/VL348 went to Newark.
The rear aerial view also shows dismantled Sea Fury WJ244 which went on to become G-FURY, Sea Fury WJ288 at left, Sea Hawk XE489 later painted as XE364 and now at Gatwick museum, Drover VH-EAS/G-APXX just visible between the Lincoln nose and rear of the Mitchell. In front of the coach is what looks like a Proctor and some other bits. Both Proctors G-AOBW/NP339 and G-ANZJ/NP303 would have been sitting there along with Hawk Trainer G-AIDF/P6411.
The Saab J29 is missing in both pictures so this would probably be October 1970 when the aircraft were moved over 2 or 3 weekends to the new museum site in Aviation Way.
I wondered if the photos were taken on different dates as the Drover and the Proctor / Magister bits and the coach seem to be parked between the Mitchell and Anson in the rear view but none of them are visible in the front view nor does there seem to be any sign of Sea Fury WJ288, the Sea Hawk or the coach. I think the Lincoln and Anson were about the last to be moved to the new site.

The Channel Airways Rapides G-AEMH and G-AKRN were in the Channel Airways scrap hangar at Southend late 60’s/early 70’s. I think the fuselages moved on and found their way to Chirk when there was a cache of Rapide parts there. I don’t remember ever seeing any wings.

The photo of Carvair G-ASHZ shows the unused last Carvair nose on the dump behind it and what appears to be one of the derelict Channel Airways DC-3’s that used to stand outside the scrap hangar. The Carvair nose can also be seen in the picture of the BAF Viscount.

The picture of Carvair G-AXAI has Beverley XB261, the museum building and the back of the Airport Hotel in the background.

The Saunders Roe ST27 CF-XOK is the prototype which was converted from a Heron (XM295 from memory) by Aviation Traders at Southend

I remember Dr Fopp being interviewed at one time prior to the completion of the Graham White hangar and he said he would like to see the early aircraft brought out for occassional engine runs. Seemed a great idea and that he had some kind of vision at that time so what went wrong?
I haven’t visited for some time having been discouraged recently by stories of parts of the museum being closed. I assume that the lack of staff is due to a lack of money which may well be beyond the control of the management.
Having said that when I did visit, on a couple of occassions, to measure aircraft for a plastic kit company the staff I encountered seemed to be typical Civil Servants full of Civil servcie yuckspeak. I remember being told on my last visit that I was very fortunate to be able to use a step ladder. Apparently the museum was introducing new Health and Safety rules the following week which meant I would be refused permission to use a step ladder unless I had attended and passed an expensive health and safety course which I would be required to fund.
To the staff it appeared to be just another office job with no interest at all in the museum or the exhibits beyond making sure that they still had jobs tomorrow.
I visited the Scoience Museum recently and again I was struck by how little the “security staff” interacted with the public and that the staff appeared to have little knowledge of the exhibits. I heard several youngsters in the air gallery asking their dads questions and I helped dad out on a couple of occassions with the answers and received thanks for my efforts. Surely the aim of the place is to educate and how can you educate visitors if the staff don’t interact and answer questions.

Thanks the positioning didn’t look right for the Channel Daks and I had an idea it was one from an accident but couldn’t quite place it. If I remember rightly it was dutch regsitered?

I would not be surprised to find that HFL insisted on accountants to oversee the project finances.
If you read my posts I have never suggested that the Vulcan should be maintained by unpaid volunteers. I am not naive enough to assume that such an idea would ever be an option for the Vucan or any other complex aircraft.
I merely suggested that there may be people (probably retired or semi-retired)who have the accountancy and money management skills to oversee the finances and fund raising for little or no reward for themselves simply because they love aviation. If such people do exist and they have appropriate experience or qualifications I don’t see why the HLF should have any problem with them running the finances. In my experience people with a passion for their project and some relevant specialist knowledge work harder and are often able to come up with different fund raising ideas than so called fund raising experts.
If paid professionals fund raisers haven’t been able to put together a business plan which ensured continuation of the funding then surely competent volunteers with appropriate financial and accounting experience and a passion for aviation could have done a similar job or possibly a better job but at little or no cost to the Vulcan project and therefore with more of the donated money going to keep the aircraft in the air rather than being used to pay financial administrators.
As I said before I have absolutely no problem with the money that is spent to employ professionals to restore and maintain the Vulcan but I didn’t donate because I felt that too much of the money was likely to land up in the pockets of financial managers who, if the project did fail, could walk away with their pockets full and move on to their next job in any field where someone would pay their wages. The mere fact that the financial managers appear to be laying the lack of continuing funds at the door of those who have already given generously when in fact the lack of a business plan seems to be the core of the problem indicates to me that my concerns were well founded.

I know – I was simply reflecting on a past comment from someone who knew the situation regarding the HFL’s requirement for paid workforce; with respect to the CAA’s position, I was simply stating my assumption, I have little knowledge of such matters! Not a dig at you, if that’s how it was construed… 🙂

Sorry Elliott – From my end it did appear to be a dig but thanks for straightening things out.
I take my hat off to the people who restored and maintain the Vulcan but find it very sad that the fundraisers appear to have let them down. Let’s hope something materialises soon otherwise in many ways this could be held up as one of the biggest white elephants in the history of classic aviation in the UK. Even if 558 doesn’t fly again I hope there are lessons which can be learned so that other any future projects don’t go the same way.

PH-MOA crashed on the evening of the 1971 European Cup Final at Wembley. It was carrying Ajax supporters who were having a bit of a party.

Regards Phil

The story going around amongst the Southend spotters at the time was that many of the passengers were so intent on their party that they didn’t even realise that the aircraft had crashed. Seems to ring a bell that one U/C leg collapsed but perhaps someone has the full story.

I knew CEJ quite well for a while as I worked at the Southend Museum during school holidays at the time we had the Tony Haig Thomas Moth Collection housed there. One of my first jobs each morning was to dust the aircraft although I was told to stay away from the airworthy ones so I had to walk past CEJ and all the other Moths. Unfortunately I never got to fly in her as she didn’t move much during the time I spent at the museum.