XN923I actually used the text below on another thread – but it seems to suit this one too.
I’ve only found time to properly read this forum over the last few weeks and the same complaints come up time and again about how ‘WE’ aren’t preserving or saving things.
There are groups like the BAPC who say they’ll help but I don’t think it is working. The BAPC seems to have become mostly a policy making group (please prove me wrong!) and it’s the like of the LPG, FAST and others who are actively doing things.
I wonder if the way forward would be for US to form a society of enthusiasts which would give us a louder voice to help sway the mainly political arguments that have lost us so many treasures.
Big question is, how many of US are there? How many would sign up to such a society to give it credibility? How many would happily donate £xx per month to fund it?
As a mass of lone voices – we as enthusiasts don’t stand a chance of changing things.
United… who knows?I’d love to be involved with the kind of thing XN923 is suggesting and I think the first step would be to find out how many people are interested. Maybe a web page with a “yes, I’m interested” button on it?
Thanks wv838 – I suppose what I wanted was to gauge opinion, get an idea of how many people would be interested etc. If there is an organisation set up to do the kinds of things we are proposing then fine, let’s support that instead, but at the moment I think there is potential for the idea. SUre, you won’t save everything, and there will always be some unfortunate cases that slip through the net – what I want to do is try and make the holes in the net a bit smaller.
How do we go about getting a poll set up?
XN923They didn’t leave that very long did they? The end of a sad saga – although I think in reality its course was set some time ago.
XN923I would love to help out with a charity like this but where do you start, firstly whats needed is to decided exactly what role a charity like this would take.
Would it simply provide funds for a rebuild and display by a museum (Voluntary group) ?
Would the charity buy rare airframes and rebuild and display the planes themselves ?
Would it be just static rebuilds or would they provide cash to help keep rare aircraft in the sky (IE help with insurance, provide funds to allow a plane to fly without being covered in adverts) ?
Where would the money come from, who would get the final say over when this charity got involved in a project and to what extent ?
I think it would do what people think it should do. My idea at the moment is that it would not actively restore airframes and the like (although its members almost certainly would) but would put museums and their own volunteers in touch with scrapyard projects like the Swift or Shackleton nose, arrange transport between locations and provide a ‘pool’ of local volunteers to help with one off projects and the like.
I think there are probably enough museums out there to take on all the projects we could throw at them if there were the money to do the initial purchase and cover part of the restoration cost, and to deal with the nuts and bolts of moving things around. I’m talking mainly about the smaller museums rather than RAFM/IWM, but eventually, who knows? What I’m envisioning is more a network than a physical entity with a hard and fast location to bring airframes etc. to and restore them, but it depends where people think the need is.
XN923Yes that’s all well and good but where exactly would the money come from and who would be responsible for a rebuild. I cannot see the MOD taking any interest in this and I doubt the Lottery would give any cash.
What’s needed to help with long-term preservation is a national charity that could raise funds to buy rare aircraft when they became available, and provide further funds for rebuild and display indoors, or in the case of better conditioned aircraft airshow displays.
You’re right of course, and such a thing would take many years to set up, and it would most likely not be within the lifetime of this aircraft – but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. In fact, I think it’s a really worthwhile aim. It would be far easier to get lottery money for something like this than for a one-off project like the Swift alone.
I’d like to get to the bottom of the Swift situation though. Is the owner
a) unwilling to sell under any circumstances
b) unwilling to sell but could be persuaded if he could be sure the buyer would not do exactly what happened with the Spitfire and immediately sell on for a huge mark up
c) unwilling to sell for all but un unrealistically exorbitant sum because he thinks some moneybags enthusiast will one day come along with a blank cheque?
All three have been suggested – does anyone have a clear idea of where the truth of the matter is?
XN923Weren’t there Russian licence-produced versions of the Wright Cyclone (as used on e.g. La-5/5FN/7/9)? If so I would imagine the Cyclone and its derivatives would be up there.
XN923I wrote:
and XN923 wrote:
…..which made me realise I had not made myself clear:-) The P47G was not a later version/improvement on the D. It was an early-model, Razorback D (a D-10 to be precise) built by Curtiss rather than Republic.(in the same way that the difference between a P51B and a P51C is simply one of where it was built). The P47 was undoubtedly improved over time with the later, Republic-built, bubbletop D-25, -27, -30 etc. However Curtiss production of P47s was terminated before the various “improvements” came on line and there is no “P47G” (i.e. Curtiss-built) equivalent of these models.
NiallC
My bad. I assumed (without checking) that the G was a later model on a direct line of continuation from the D – Closter’s comments are therefore no doubt about early and later ‘D’ models.
XN923Theoretically there is no difference – the Ds were built by Republic, the G’s by Curtiss. There were some minor differences between the 5 production blocks as there were with the Ds, but, other than these minor changes over time to equipment etc. the G is identical. I don’t think Gs ever carried the underwing pylons, but then, these airraft were never used operationally and perhaps pylons were fitted to Ds after manufacture.
NiallC
This surprises me as in ‘The Big Show’, the first US squadron that Closterman encounters is flying ‘Razorback’ P47s, and the impression he has is that neither pilots nor aircraft are up to tackling German fighters, while after the benefit of some experience and better aircraft, their performance improves dramatically. I don’t have the book to hand but I’m sure he suggests that the aircraft have problems and that the later models offer a big improvement. I dare say a lot of this is anecdotal on Colster’s part, but he spends a page or two lamenting the shortcomings of the ‘razorback’ (which he reveals is thus named for its unhappy resemblence to a pig as much as for the sharpness of its dorsal ridge).
In any case, I got the impression that many improvements had been made between D and G model – though perhaps the increase in visibility was dramatic enough to help pilots get the upper hand where previously they had struggled.
XN923Thanks! What colour is that Sea Hawk by the way? From the pics it looks rather like the sort of blue-black you get on COD Gannets and the like, not like the full on black like the FRADU Hawks
XN923Your son had a talent Dan, clearly prodigous for a nine year old. I wish I could draw that well at the age of 29! I can offer no more except the Irish condolence – sorry for your trouble.
SeaFuryFan, your lad was never more right. My Dad bought me the Airfix Lanc to celebrate my sister’s birth when I was sixish (I think it was more for him really!) and I drew nothing else for about a year! I remember drawing machine gun fire exactly the same, as little lines of dashes, and no doubt complete with captions (some in ‘Victor’ German, ‘actung!’ ‘Gott in Himmel!’ and the like) – them were the days.
Tell him to do a Shackleton next 🙂
XN923…And the Scimitars now please!
Crikey, that’s a fantastic colour scheme (fumbles around for that Airfix kit..)
XN923It sounds to me like Dave, David and Melvyn are making a lot of sense. I’ve no experience of preservation, and less time to spend on it but it breaks my heart to see aircraft I think should be preserved scrapped, or worse, left to rot and when it comes to it I want to stand up and be counted as much as my finances, domestic situation and time (got married less than a year ago and saving for a deposit on a house) allow. I have to say that the size and condition of the Vulcan nose scares me. I have limited resources to contribute to something like this, but I’d like to see them making as much of a difference as possible. It’s a crying shame XL391 was not saved while she could have been, or that the nose wasn’t removed years ago when saving it wouldn’t be too difficult.
That said, if there are people in the right geographical area and with the enthusiasm and skills to pull XL391’s nose back from the brink, good on you, and you have whatever support I can muster.
XN923Its got a single fin and 4 engines and the waist gunners got an ejection seat. Must be something Russian. 😀 😀 😀
Great artwork though. How olds your son?
But Ollie, they’re speaking English! 😀
XN923Base decision needs to be made – see what can be negotiated and save either teh whole nose or section thereof or walk away? Something motivated everyone to offer their help initially so barring a possible knee jerk reaction to the price thing (may still prove to be a deal breaker but you never know…) is that enthusiam still there?
The price hike thing had a fair effect on me. After the nose didn’t sell on eBay for £2000 (a price many people seemed to think was over the top anyway) and it was said that the owner would take reasonable offers, I took this to mean IRO £1200-£1500. Now it seems he wants double what it didn’t sell for… I think if we rise to this we might find the price going up by more. It was hard enough to raise £1000 for the Shackleton nose which was easier to deal with and had a better chance of being saved whole. I have a bad feeling about the owner’s intentions and would rather that money went somewhere else, where it can make a real difference, like the Sea Hawk in the other thread.
My inclination is to walk away, but if the owner can be persuaded to sell for a reasonable price, and the corrosion is not irreversible, my offer of some money stands. Still, as has been suggested, the purchase price is the starting point only. If the purchase price is £4,000 (and if like the Shack it mysteriously sprouts VAT and the like) then we will be looking at £10,000 or so over a period of time. I’m afraid of the nose sucking up a lot of people’s time, effort and goodwill and ending up scrapped anyway. However, if you are confident this won’t happen, I’m still in.
XN923That’s a B29 if I ever saw one.
XN923Sounds like all is not completely lost then. Any possibility of another forum project? (he offered, tentatively)
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