Very few capital projects have as much impact as a sustained house building process, the private sector makes money from this and the high price of suitable land in the South makes old airfields very attractive prospects. This also will apply to former Army estates and my local Fort George has accessible areas of flat land in use as firing ranges which will be probably housing in 20 years time.

Presumably airfields are also attractive because somebody has already done the hard bit of levelling the ground and running services into the area? Is there a big demand for housing around Inverness?

Please note I said material from China Lake, not at China Lake.
Big difference. As others have noted, the parts and aircraft are scattered to many locations, but most of the came from China Lake at one time.

Ok! But to get back to your initial post, if you are looking for a ‘less expensive and easier ways to get a Superfortress static display’ then look no further than the basketcase statics I listed above. These airframes could potentially benefit from whatever is recoverable from Kee Bird, China Lake or wherever rather than try and recover a popularly discussed but difficult-to-recover wreck and get it back to display condition.

I’m surprised that the document is titled anything as bold as ‘A better defence estate’. Likewise the Scottish public sector is looking to sell or lease assets, dressed up and promoted as the creation of a leaner, hungrier workplace and workforce (with the prerequisite fewer staff) able to do better things with fewer resources. In both cases it looks a little like asset stripping to keep the lights on; the power of spin! I also find it odd that the MOD document mentioned housing policy by name. I would assume that a lot of these sites would be turned into housing anyway, but actually citing housing demand and listing build figures reads a little like Private Eye’s Desperate Business cartoons. Why not simply state the X hectares of land up for grabs?

To single out a specific example, I’m not sure closing and flogging the land at RM Condor is going to benefit the people of Arbroath in any way, and building a housing estate there is certainly not going to solve any socio-economic issues unless they imagine Arbroath will become a satellite for Dundee or Aberdeen in the future.

I think there are less expensive and easier ways to get a Superfortress static display.
I’d think there are still various fuselage sections left over from China Lake as well as other projects.

I’m not sure there is much left at China Lake of any serious restoration merit. I think the best Superfortress material was removed years ago, and spotters/collectors soured all relations with China Lake in terms of access to the site. There will be some seriously fragmented B29-like material there, but there might as well not be given the relations there!

Conversely you have B29s on display in the US that would benefit from restoration and rebuild work, hiding in plain sight. 44-27343 is on display in an erroneous all-white paint scheme, and is missing all turrets and blisters. 45-21748 and 44-87627 are both on outdoor display in sub-optimal condition; the former with a dull all-over grey scheme and the latter with corrosion and hurricane damage. They could do with the work, but for some reason people only ever talk about Kee Bird and The Lady of the Lake.

The presentation of the airframe could be so much better too. It really deserves its own ‘hall’ where it could benefit from massively improved lighting and (lake-bottom?) setting, possibly featuring interactive lighting and sound effects…

…and fish? :highly_amused:

That corner of Hendon did baffle me. There was a pink Bucc, the Halifax, and a difficult-to-see Anson fuselage sitting on a Queen Mary. Struggling to find a common theme or purpose to that corner of the collection.

I hope the RAF Museum Halifax is never restored; it is far more effective as an exhibit in its current state.

I understand that side of the argument entirely, but how about removing the brown-orange preservation substance that was put on the airframe post-recovery? From memory it looked like it had been hosed down with a coat of Creosote. The true colours of the aircraft must be there under the inconsistently-applied Creosote layer? There must be a better preservation medium available now? It would be akin to restoring an old painting.

What tools did you have to use to get through the teak-reinforced crates?