Disagree. Witht the Halifax, you could restore in a similar “half and half” fashion to the Loch Ness Wellington at Brooklands – leaving some of ithe damage (eg the Halifax’s burnt wing) but allowing RAFM visitors to see a complete Halifax, on its u/c, from some angles, without losing the aircraft’s own story. It’s a unique aircraft and should be given more sympathetic treatment.

If they had ‘completed’ the Halifax it wouldn’t be a Halifax. It would be a photocopy of one with most of the original stuff in a skip.

What rubbish. Just look at the way the Bluebird Project has managed to save all but a shoebox of original material in its restoration of Donald Campbell’s boat.

Careful, sympathetic restoraion can be achieved without throwing tons of original material away.

I’d love to see the RAFM Halfiax restored to its condition before it crashed on the lake, not as it was recovered 3 decades later, and IMO it’s possible to do that without refabricating vast sections of aircraft.

AvroAvian wrote:

The morons have trashed the fuselage!
It was intact in the underwater video posted a while ago…

What a stupid and immature comment.

A difficult underwater recovery is achived (at the second attempt if you read the thread) with much better success than many (FW Condor, for example) – and you dismiss the team as “morons”.

I suggest you read the many reports available about underwater recoveries, and the difficulties of recovering old, weakened airframes, under high water pressure, when the wreck has become attached to the lake bed, on a budget. Then think twice before making such idiotic posts.

The Ki-54 is fixable. The Brooklands Welliington collapsed in the same way – look at it now.

What has happened to XX105? Is it still at Boscombe, or has it met a sorry end.

Couldn’t agree more.

Things I’d most like to see preserved:

1 – Carvair
2 – Bristol Freighter
3 – Airworthy Viscount

Carvair is surely worthy of the Science Museum’s collection. British innovation helmed by a great and popular man; pivotal in the development of travel; conceptual ancestor of the 747.

Only two left in the world; both potential flyers.

Bristol Freighter is the most numerous British post-war type that is not represented in presevration in the UK. Plenty of survivors.

There’s still at least one flyable Viscount in Africa (G-APEY is still in Congo). Such a pioneering and successful type – surely it would be as impressive a sight now at an airshow as a propliner of similar vintage?

Never mind though. Still plenty of WW2 data plates out there.

Simple solution for the Amiot. Give it to the Duxford Aviation Society and add it to their post-war airliner collection. Paint it in French civilan marks to represent an early post-war European airliner of the type that would have visited UK airports in the late 1940s. Historically correct, and illustrative of the cobbled-together nature of immediate post-war aviation.

Also you’ve kept it in a recognised museum and avoided any expensive dismantling and moving costs, while getting it off the IWM’s books.

M

It makes one think. In 2012 the RAF is operating a type of aircraft that first flew nearly fifty years ago.

It’s operating a few – The Chinook was 50 last year, and the C-130 is 58 this year!

Furthermore both are still in production.

Tristar celebrates its 42nd birthday this year, and even Tornado and Hawk are 38 this year…

There are one or two potential flyers in Africa – in Congo. Don’t believe the reports that they’ve all been scrapped. G-APEY definitely still exists.

A massively significant aircraft – needs bringing back as a flyer!