C’mon… what else you got!?

Would love to see more.

Roy.

It was more the running costs I was thinking about, XN923 !

Not another bl**dy scouser 😉

I remember the last Britannia at Speke, it was open to the public and I drooled a lot.

Roy.

You can park her here… we’ve got loads of room 🙂

Roy.

Camlobe… I’ve a chap here with some shack instrument panels for you. I don’t know exactly what he’s got so PM me for contact details.

Roy.

Misha – I know you are right. But if you never try…

Michelf – Thanks for that, all very interesting and very useful info.

I’ve spoken to just about every aero-nut I know in the last few days and without exception they are all in favour of getting us all organised in some way. Whether it is to put pressure on councils or other bodies or simply to help guide wannabe volunteers to something useful in their area – they can’t (yet) see a down side to the idea.

So the BAPC is of little use to an induhvidual then. Apart from the H&S aspect.

WV838 – The Blackpool Vulcan didn’t need lobbying to save it. It needed a business minded individual or group to systematically dismantle her into anything that would sell leaving just the cockpit . Following from that if you have made a good job of it the scrapman will give you some cash for the scrap – the group gets a Vulcan cockpit for free. Far easier to enter negociations with the owner rather than the scrapman.

Here lies a problem. The average individual doesn’t have the knowledge or resources for such a proposal. This is why a collective would make life easier. See, if you had been a member of such a collective, your ideas above may well have been put to good use.

As for your Sea Hawk – there is no reason why you cannot form a group to help restore her and apply to join the BAPC. You could even form it on the basis of one other helping you with the restoration.

None of my local friends are aviation minded. Few friends know which end of a screwdriver to hold. The hours I work on the Sea Hawk are generally at very unsociable times. Why spend money on BAPC membership (how much is it?) when I could be spending what few spare pounds I have on parts? Give a presentation on ‘838 just to prove I’m worthy of membership? What can the BAPC do for me?

In terms of being Pro-BAPC – I am even handed – I dislike the notion that the BAPC is there to save every waif and stray from the scrapman when the council’s true purpose is to help preservation as an entity and not be partisan by helping to save one aircraft for a group when it could be directly in competition with another group. I have one clear view – we need preservation done well of aircraft which are worthy of preservation – we don’t need endless duplication and the view that everything outside will in someway magically survive the ravages of nature.

The BAPC are more of a ‘network’ provider. A collective of singleton enthusiasts could only enhance that network. Endless duplication? Like Concorde perhaps? 😀 I do agree however that aircraft outdoors are on a long slippery slope to the coke-can-factory.