Don’t think I’ll be able to drag the cockpit down there, but will try and attend anyway.

Best of luck with the event!

Roy.

After four years opening our J41 to the public and many hundreds of kids, the only loss has been a corgi model Britannia (the ba$tards!) and there has been no damage at all. Although the aircraft is a static, the cockpit is very much live as a simulator and wandering fingers do need to be monitored.

All our visitors are accompanied, and to date – have responded well to warnings and have enjoyed our little tours both inside and out.

HunterFX – all well said!

H&S and risk assessments have always been with us. It used to be called education and common sense though. In these days of litigation over the slightest thing – you have to cover your own a$$. Even a small claim could kill a museum or collection.

Last week as I was driving into Speke, I saw a bloke pop his toddler of a kid onto the wing of the Rapide replica, then stand next to the sign which reads “DANGER! Do Not Approach The Aircraft” to take a picture.

As well as being a fragile fabric wing, the wing is high enough that the toddler could have been quite badly damaged had she fallen.

The bloke was quite irate when I steamed onto the scene calling him a crack smoking monkey ******** of an irresponsible idiot.

Overall, the public have been good with us, I certainly won’t let the odd clown spoil it all. I find enormous pleasure in seeing joe public leave the aircraft with a happy smile and especially kids who may have suddenly found a life long passion in aircraft.

However, if I find someone doing something nasty – god help them.

Just my 2c worth!

Roy.

I understand that No.3 hangar at Hooton has all but collapsed, and the others are in a pretty poor state now.

Reckon they’re optical Ilyushins meself…

Only a scouser….

Gosh and Crikey! I certainly hope that you’re not including me in that 99% Mr Truman – I actually prefer driving sideways 😀

Forgive me, but your post reminded me of this….

Eric Idle: Who would have thought, thirty years ago, we’d all be sitting here drinking Chateau de Chaselet, eh?
All: Aye, aye.
Michael Palin: Them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea.
Graham Chapman: Right! A cup of cold tea!
Michael Palin: Right!
Eric Idle: Without milk or sugar!
Terry Jones: Or tea!
Michael Palin: In a cracked cup and all.
Eric Idle: Oh, we never used to have a cup! We used to have to drink out of a rolled-up newspaper!
Graham Chapman: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
Terry Jones: But you know, we were happy in those days, although we were poor.
Michael Palin: Because we were poor!
Terry Jones: Right!
Michael Palin: My old dad used to say to me: “Money doesn’t bring you happiness, son!”
Eric Idle: He was right!
Michael Palin: Right!
Eric Idle: I was happier then and I had nothing! We used to live in this tiny old tumbled-down house with great big holes in
the roof.
Graham Chapman: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twentysix of us, no furniture,
half the floor was missing, we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
Terry Jones: You were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in the corridor!
Michael Palin: Oh, we used to dream of living in a corridor! Would have been a palace to us! We used to live in an old
watertank on a rubbish tip. We’d all woke up every morning by having a load of rotten fish dumped all over us! House, huh!
Eric Idle: Well, when I say a house, it was just a hole in the ground, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us!
Graham Chapman: We were evicted from our hole in the ground. We had to go and live in a lake!
Terry Jones: You were lucky to have a lake! There were 150 of us living in a shoebox in the middle of the road!
Michael Palin: A cardboard box?
Terry Jones: Aye!
Michael Palin: You were lucky! We lived for three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank! We used to have to go
up every morning, at six o’clock and clean the newspaper, go to work down the mill, fourteen hours a day, week in, week out,
for six pence a week, and when we got home, our dad would slash us to sleep with his belt!
Graham Chapman: Luxury! We used to have to get up out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a
handful of hot grubble, work twenty hours a day at mill, for two pence a month, come home, and dad would beat us around
the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
Terry Jones: Well, of course, we had it tough! We used to have to get up out of the shoebox in the middle of the night, and
lick the road clean with our tongues! We had to eat half a handful of freezing cold grubble, work twenty-four hours a day at
mill for four pence every six years, and when we got home, our dad would slice us in two with a breadknife!
Eric Idle: Right! I had to get up in the morning, at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold
poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill and pay millowner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
our dad would kill us and dance about on our graves, singing Hallelujah!
Michael Palin: Aah. Are you trying to tell the young people of today that, and they won’t believe you!
All: No, no they won’t!

Sea Hawk ?

Guess we’ll know soon enough, I know the chap that bought it.

:confused:

Where does this fit in with historic aviation?

J man

It certainly fits in with it here, because it’s delaying the arrival of our Britannia!

Luckily, only a thin covering of snow here but it’s still coming down fast.

Roy.