I think a smaller museum could have a good chance of restoring a large aircraft. The large museums have budgets and time limits to worry about – the small museums generally don’t. If a restoration took five years longer than anticipated, then so be it. If it cost £5000 or £500,000, then so what.. there is no-one counting the pennies. Funding would come directly from donations and the direct fund-raising the small museums have been good at for the last 40 years. Newark and Gatwick are prime examples of how small dedicated bands of volunteers can restore large airframes to an acceptable standard. The Shackleton Association at Coventry probably had an even smaller pile of cash available, and look at what they have acheived!
NEAM’s Vulcan is perhaps not a shining example of restoration at it’s peak, HOWEVER it is still in one bit, and work continues to prevent it’s death (predominantly looked after by ONE volunteer currently). Without small museums pouring all they have into large aircraft, think how much poorer the UK preservation movement would be…
Sign In
