As a side note the Wrights loaned the Flyer to the Science Museum prior to WW2…it spent the war in the Underground tunnels and it was only returned to the USA once the Smithsonian had acknowledged the Wrights as being the first to fly…

The original was returned to hte US in return for the ‘authorised’ replica/ recreation that is there today…

JonathanF,

Thanks for making it clear….
I thought my words were clear but Moocher disagrees…

The thrust of the arguement however remains… IWM set up shop… private companies arrrive…they must the there for a reason and its not the weather.

The sum total is then part of the attraction…

SeaKing,

Agreed the Concorde Hall was put up especially for 002. However it is a hanger modifed somewhat to allow daylight in…a bit like the Superhanger in that regard, which was erected to house the larger airframes, including Concorde; and allow work to be carried out on them under cover. Nobody accuses that of being a display building, although it is…

The issue is not whether or not is a display space…it is, but it was and remains a hanger…in its structure and expression…unlike the AAM, the Milestones of Flight or the Cold War buildings which are display spaces, designed for that purpose.

Whether or not they are beautiful/ successful/ a waste of money is irrelevant, they are concieved to that end and as such display a particular design and expression. It is that fact which sets them apart from hangers such as the one at Newark…again its a strucutre designed for one purpose being used for another…it may or may not work but that is what it is doing..

That is the heart of the matter. Here in the UK buildings like the AAM and Cosford are designed with that in mind… look to equivalents in the US and buildings like the NMUSAF at Dayton and NASM Udvar Hazy display a similar approach.. they are display buildings.. they may look like over grown Nissan huts but they do not look like T2s or current large aircraft hangers…or look at the Museum in Seattle…a great big glass box…or the NASM on the Mall…another highly glazed box…

As an interesting aside, the IWM uses the Anderson shelter next to the AAM as an example of a curved roofed, semi buried structure…a precursor to the AAM if you wish…

Seaking..

From speaking to the FAA museum, the Concorde Hall is a hanger structure with a glass wall. It was erected specifically to allow conservation work on 002 to be carried out inside and then displayed.

It is therefore a bit of both.. but like the superhanger it was a working structure adapted as a display space.

As Bruce has said, there is a difference between buildings in which to work on and view aircraft and one solely to view and enjoy them.. and their associations. The Concorde Hall falls mainly in the former…with half a foot in the later.

Rocketeer,

Without the AAM as designed there would have neither been an AAM or even possibly not an 8th Air Force memorial at Duxford.
It was the key to unlocking the sums of money needed and which continue to be needed to house the collection.
The presentation of the scheme to the key members of the organisation in the US was the watershed in getting the fundraising into gear.

So like it or not its design has made itself possible.

Replica WW1 or WW2 hangers are simply not large enough to cover Concorde, Vulcan and so forth, so they would need to be scaled up…making them no only fakes but ‘impossible’ fakes.

The quality inherent in the exisiting period hangers also far surpasses anything the IWM (or any other museum) can afford today. The brick work, the roof trusses etc would but the price into something in the order of twice the rate for the AirSpace on a m2 rate.. and no less space would be required..
So you would have to fake that as well.

So you would end up making an out of scale pastiche of a WW1 hanger to preserve sometihng that by the time the IWM took it over was not longer anything like the 30s and 40s station it was…

As for filming…perhaps…then again having to close sections of the museum to allow filming would not exactly be popular, nor would having to move the heavies off the display line…including Concorde and the B-52…

Its a compromise.. and one which was already well underway before the Superhanger was erected… like a hard runway and a missing bit of airfield..
You’ll find that the other side of the A505 is less affected, the ‘domestic side’ of the station.

David,

Its a tough call…especially modifying airframes to hang them….
However the standard on-wheels pose of aircraft is only one aspect of an aircraft.

The attempt to show how they might look in flight is to be lauded…
The discussion usually breaks into two.. aircraft enthusiats tend to not like it…damage, details hidden and so on.. the ‘average’ visitor however is far less concerned with that and welcomes the sight of something different than yet another WW2 fighter with its nose in the air… believe me there are those for whom a Spitfire/ Hurricane/ Mustang/ Me109 look all the same… and they really appreciate seeing the topsides or it looking as if its flying..

In this financial climate, appealing to the widest possible audience is essential…

The SR was requested by the IWM a number of years prior to the completion of the AAM…just as the fleet was entering its twilight years of service…

Once the fleet was grounded and the NASA birds, ‘spares’ and the USAF examples allocated the USAF Museum was tasked with allocating the remainding airframes.

At the time the RAFM’s projects were not focussed on a USAF collection and its future projects showed this, and the space for it were further downstream.

The IWM however had an active campaign to raise funds for a building dedicated to the USAF… and one which could easily become a symbol of the USAF service.

However it was only after the AAM was built that the USAF Museum allocated one for certain to the IWM.. one of the conditions is was housed in the AAM or a new specific addition to it.

Certainly the Cold War Collection at Cosford would have been an equally suitable home…however without the AAM and its success how much longer would have had to wait for that project to come to fruitition? Or even the Milestones of Flight at Hendon; the hanger at Newark or even Cobham Hall at the FAA Museum or the Sir Michael Beetham Centre at Cosford…all of these follow the succes of the AAM in terms of raising the profile of avaition museums and hence the value in funding their expansion and the restoration facilities that supprt them.

It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it is a important marker in aviation preservation in this country.

Weight is not an issue… the U2 weighs very little and with it being on the centre line its relatively easy to support..each suspension point in the centre section can take a 9 ton load.

Not certain why the engine was not removed.. but as its not a necessity for the display it makes sense not to devote the time to doing so…althought its entirely possible that some specialist equipment was required which was not available to the IWM….

JDK, Mark V…

The BM issue is not really a good comparision at all….
Bear with me.. its a publically funded project which, because of its size, has a very thick set of rules and regulations which govern the procurement of goods and sesrvices.

This is designed to ensure a competitive tender process can be undertaken ensuring best value (or no fleecing) for the works to the public purse.
In this in particular covers the specification of all products to be used, without exception…including ‘Portland Stone’…which is obligatory under rules governing works to Grade 1 listed buildings.

So under the EU rules you cannot specify named products.. and ‘Portland Stone’ is a named product; there are only two quarries in the UK who can legally label their stone ‘Portland Stone’…all other UK limestones are not from the same bed.

Under UK Heritage rules ‘Portland Stone’ had be used.

As EU law is the more onerous (plus they were funding a greater percentage of the works) so they got their way.

The architects were therefore forced to write a specification for oolithic limestone defining certain performance and appearance criteria which effectively limited the limestone to that which is extracted from the ‘Portland’ bed.

However that spec. cannot be so strict as to define a single product…so this meant any stone extracted from the ‘Portland’ bed, on either side of the Channel was able, subject to sampling and benchmarking, to fulfill the spec.

The term ‘or similar’ is used to allow contractors to propose other products that are very close to fulfilling the spec, but may offer financial or availability advantages. They can then be rejected based on their own merits by the design team..for example another UK limestone could have been proposed, but its could have legitimately been rejected as not fulfilling the spec. without the contractor being able to claim the spec was to constraining.

When the stone went to tender the quarries on the UK side were unable to provide the quantum of stone in the right sizes, at the right time for the right price….a common enough issue when dealing with a natural material.

So in order to maintain the programme the ‘Portland’ stone extracted from the other side of the Channel was used.

So whilst the stone is ‘Portland’ stone in that it comes form the limestone bed called the ‘Portland’ bed and it shares all of its geological charactersitics with stone extracted at Portland, it is not ‘Portland stone’; if you see what I mean.

The French stone is not exactly the same in grain and texture as the UK one..its natural material afterall and it does not take carving in the same way.

The issue is that there are two sets of contradictory rules.. one from the EU whose remit is to ensure open and fair competition (not possible with only two suppliers) and the UK heritage rules who remit is to preserve the exact material and nature of UK buildings, built for the most part with UK specific materials…

As there is no mechanism in the procurement process to reconcile this issue, its left to the Clients and their team to sort out this matter each and every time it arises.

So painting a publicity Spitfire FSM with inconsistent roundels to go with the paint scheme is not quite the same issue.

The issue with the Spit is that it would appear that the colour scheme and the roundel were not used together… but are we 100% certain that they were never used together? Ever?

If the answer is yes then it is incorrect…if there is a doubt then one Spit somewhere may have worn that combination….in which case its all pretty moot.

The maximum sized aircraft that can be moved in and out thro the current doors is an F-105.. as its wings do come off at the fuselage line.

It could also be suspended with the current layout.

The T-33 has been in and out and up and down a couple of times since the AAM opened thro the doors in the glass wall.

In order to move the larger airframes..like the SR and the B-24 the glass wall can be taken down to open up the entire front.

The U2 is indeed dripping liquids onto the B-52.
All aircraft and engines will continue to drip the residual liquids over time..unless the systems have been fully dismantled and cleaned of all liquid.

You will see drip trays under the B-52 for example catching fuel and oil etc.. the same for the F-4/ F-111 even the B-29 and so forth.

The one which will not drip is the Mustang; its a plastic replica…

The ‘Mildenhall’ SR is actually in the AAM at Duxford…