The SR had a series of different possible ‘noses’ over the years.
This is the one that came with it..

There are others with different noses however this seems to be the one most used when they were retired initially.

WH, interesting point, which then begs the question…. who is paying for the staff to copy the material, restore and conserve it and run the actual building in which these historic documents reside? As we do not pay an entrance fee to Lambeth and the political choice is to reduce tax funding of this institution then they do need to find alternative income streams, often to simply have a full operational budget year on year….and shuffling capital funds to operational funds is a no-no….

If you are unhappy with that then perhaps your MP is the one with whom you should share your displeasure….

Perhaps a reminder that the IWM North remit is very different to Lambeth’s might be in order…

The original proposals were for a far larger exhibition space, including ships and aircraft. However as it evolved it became clear that it was a ‘copy’ of the Lambeth installation’s remit. The remit was altered to focus on the effects of war on the people. This is different than Lambeth and whether or not it is the right/ best/ wrong/ worse choice it is the one that was taken.

The IWM want people to visit all three sites without duplication…..that’s the theory anyway and to a degree it works.

I disagree that the Smithsonian is a good example. It is a US museum institution that has a number of ‘divisions’ if you will. A parallel would be to have single entity in the UK that ‘governs’ the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the V+A, National Gallery and the Tates, the IWM, with other divisions looking after ‘native cultures’ etc etc.

As the Smithsonian, it would be a ‘government’ insitution, dependent on government funding and shifts in focus as to what is ‘correct’ at the time. (See exhibtions like the Taskegee Airmen or the Enola Gay….for political correctness being the driving force behind the exhibitions).

The sheer volume and inertia of the Smithsonian is frightening, making our own museums seen fast and reactive.

The Smithsonian is beyond Washington Centric, its Mall centric. The Hazy Centre is a mind boggling aberation solely allowed because the golden rule was followed. Stephen had the gold… he said Dulles… they followed. It took a few decades to get there, during which time the Silver Hill facility made Wroughton look like a palace.

It is a real shame in many ways that the RAFM, IWM and Science Museum are unable to collaborate to create a co-ordinated collection (even if in seperate locations) that represent the widest range of UK and UK relevant aircraft. Ideally a single site, adjacent to an easily accessible airfield would be one that permits the greatest possible number of visitors to access it and have flying at the venue…..

Unlikely tho’….

…..However, I fear the thread is sliding off topic by talking about the building – again.

+1

well, if they can’t decide what to put in the place and they need to half dismantle it to get anything in or out… Plus futuristic architecture only looks futuristic for so long.

In a short post three seperate statements are made and all three can be viewed as ‘incorrect…’

1) They do know what they want. The issue is that needs to change as time and overall objectives evolve. It is the nature of a museum to have desires that need to respond to (and to create) new demands and opportunities. If the objectives were static an unchanging the collection would become stale and rapidly lose its attractiveness to the outside world.

2) The removal and the future reinstallation of Mary Alice (and the T-33) shows what can and cannot be installed through the emergency doors and the openable overpanels) in the glass wall. This glass wall itself is designed to be dismantled and with the normal 10 year ‘churn’ of large exhibits this can be planned and budgeted for… at the time (and still today) the need to have a permanent visual link from inside the AAM to the active was deemed an more important priority than the need, approx every 10 years to open up the space. The opportunities that gives on a day to day basis for visitors was viewed one to be seixed adn that the curatorial issues of pre-planning how and when to move the aircraft would resolve the aricraft movement ones. Sure this may be seen as a problem, however the glass wall offers something else.

3) Interesting to call the design ‘futuristic’. It might help if you elaborated further. It’s formis based on simple, ages old geometry, the sort of stuff Pythagoras would recognise. The materials are all damn basic and as inexpensive as they come.

The other aspect is that this building is about the people, not about the planes. They are there to tell the people’s story, they do not tell their story in this instance. That is the objective and as such perhaps asks the viewer to bring a different perspective to the collection and how they are ‘used’.

The key consideration in rejecting the C-130 as a COD (and I’d imagine the later F-28 studies) is that once down they would effectively monopolise the flight deck until they could take off again.

Certainly the C-130 was simply too large to allow for other operations to take place (significantly, I know they could have spotted it forward and used the waist cats and still kept the angled deck clear, however that did not fit with the operational view at the time…)

Also no chance of stricking it down below…maintenance would have been interesting.

But even so the film of it landing is simply awesome…like watching the RA-5Cs….

the important thing being that all the improvements and additions were done while the fort was in the military service of this country, unlike those at Dx. I think that was the point Ben was trying to make which I concur with.

Agree that the majority of the additions (and removals!) are post military service. In order to accommodate its new role.

Arguably Duxford was closer to its original condition when this started than Fort Paull is now but that is a digression.

It might be good to sum up what is going on…

1) The Beverley should be covered in order to provide a more secure future.
2) The current location in Fort Paull may not be the most appropriate location for a covered Beverley….

So the options are getting limited (by £££ primarily)…and the status quo is maintained…with the Beverley remaining outside.

This is a very different situation to say Duxford, where the airfield is not the preserved `item`, it is a place to put preserved items. Hence Airspace, American Air Museum etc. Fort Paull is the preserved `item` which happens to have other things (Beverley) inside.

Hmmm.. Duxford might disagree with your view… and my own work with them suggests the IWM and Cambridge Council view Duxford as a historic location…

I do not disagree with your point of adaption, conversion and supplementation of historic buildings/ areas for modern use (for example I would like to see Buckingham Palace converted in to a hospital or the land sold for offices to pay some of the deficit) just not in this case.

OK, pretty clear and very different from ‘it cannot be done’..