It was one of the F58’s out of Yeovilton, c/s Navy 71, I believe it was ZZ191

Apologies all: 1200, Yeivil Crematorium, Monday 21st December
No Flowers, Donations will be divided between;
Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance and
St Margaret’s Hospice, Yeovil.

Judwin, many thanks for the information

Knew John from his visits to FAAM where the Flycatcher is now housed, a real gentleman and another of the old school gone for ever,

RIP John

The Sea Vixen departed Yeovilton this morning after carrying out a full practice display, it was due to RTB at BIA and then later to take part in a flypast with the 2 currently based Hawks at Yeovilton who had relocated to BIA

Kev

Fulmar I N4079 of 761 NAS Yeovilton collided with Fulmar II N4008 (also 761 NAS) over Lulsgate Bottom airfield (now, of course, Bristol International) on 15 October 1942. Both crashed 2 miles East of Cheddar at the top of the Gorge; 18 year old Temp Midshipman (A) Godfrey Terrington Slater RNVR killed in N4079, whilst Sub Lieutenant R Starkey managed to bale out of N4008.

Slater, son of Louis and Doris Slater of Matlock, Derbyshire, is buried in Plot 1, Row 12, Grave 13 of Matlock (St.Giles) Churchyard, Derbyshire.

What else were you looking for?

HTH

Lee

Lee

Thats interesting, the other publication(Somerset at War) I checked first gives a different name(S/Lt Shorte) for that incident, all the other details such as a/c serials are the same

Previous posters have detailed the increase in RAFM staffing and that despite this, “lack of staff” is held up as the reason for the long term closure of many exhibits.

By way of comparison, I dropped into the Fleet Air Arm Museum yesterday.

It’s not cheap to get in (£10.50 each) and it’s in the middle of reorganising for a new display. Nevertheless the displays were interesting, you could walk right around the exhibits – even touch them! They clearly entertained a lot of children without serious problems. It was dark in the carrier exhibition but this is understandable given the rather dated graphics used. It didn’t seem any darker than the BoB Hall to be honest…

With respect to staff I saw:

2 people in the shop
1 person preparing an aircraft for the new exhibition
1 person at the entrance to part of the carrier exhibit (justifiable H&S – it’s a lift!)
1 member of staff walking around (with a serving RN officer).

All seemed knowledgeable, friendly and to enjoy being in the place.
It felt like reasonable value for money.

It’s a complex museum, lots of nooks & crannies – but they don’t seem to need the numbers of staff on the ground that the RAFM do.

Presumably they rely on CCTV and it’s acceptable. Does anybody here fancy giving the FAAM’s view?

Ask yourself, if it was YOUR business, how many people would you want to staff the RAFM – the numbers seem very high to me – anybody any idea how they break down? Exactly how many staff do the RAFM need to open all the exhibits – how big is the gap?

Yes CCTV is used at FAAM however you only actually saw a fraction of the staff yesterday, there were approx 38 on duty accross all the depts, thats including all the backroom staff.

The situation with the ‘National Museums’ is that there are 6 ‘National Military Museums’, that are sponsored by the MOD not DCMS,

The National Army Museum
The RAFM
The Submarine Museum
The Royal Marines Museum
The Royal Navy Museum
The FAAM

The 4 naval museums are now being brought under one umbrella organisation called the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

On the free entry question, the National Army Museum used to be the only one with free entry, when the DCMS museums went free the RAFM visitor numbers suffered, the director(Dr Fopp) went to the MOD and asked and got extra grant in aid to enable the RAFM to go free and compete.

When the naval museums followed suit and asked they were turned down as it was felt that the RAFM was competing with a lot of large museums within the M25, they were not so they have remained fee paying to this day.

Hope that explains why FAAM has to charge

Just came up with this..

The Attackers last service career was with the Pakistan Air Force. After protracted negotiations 36 Attackers were sold to Pakistan, 33 were ferried out by Supermarine pilots, and the other 3 were flown out by Pakistan Air Force pilots as an exercise, the flying time to Karachi averaging 11 hr and 40 mins.

But.. i have also read that they were in fact registered to the Pakistan Navy.:confused:

I knew one of the pilots who ferried the aircraft out to Pakistan, he was in fact a Royal Navy pilot on leave, he told me that several of his friends also flew aircraft out, sadly he is no longer with us but his name lives on on the side of the Attacker at FAAM