Nah! – paint her in her correct original colours – but have sponsors pay to have something in the weapons bay – with varying amounts paid for how many times she opens the doors at airshows.

The bomb bay doors have already been set aside for earlier donations. Those of us who gave money at the very beginning of the project, several years ago now.

Moggy- Black & Gold – I look forward to seeing my home town football team’s logo on the tail at the very least. However, who’s to say Sir Jack will associate XH558 with Wolves? I’m sure he has a swathe of other business interests that would also benefit.

According to this Wikipedia entry Sir Jack is ex-RAF.

And don’t forget the advertising opportunities offered by the educational side of the project, and I guess there will be a “Battle Bus” of some describe.

Falling distinctly into the sceptical camp you can make anything fly if you throw enough money at it! The figures from memory will be something like £3.9 million to get her near the end of the runway ready to go . Add then £1 million per year as estimated for a ten year display life which if you add various fuel increases and operating cost increases at a conservative 5% per year could equate to a final figure after ten years of something like £15 million .
Display fees can be effectively discounted – most warbird owners have traditionally never made any money out of it and by and large only ever covered a degree of running costs . Additional costs will involve crew training – at some stage you are going to wish to train more crews to fly her . Relevant experience for flying a large delta jet is a little thin in the U.K – not sure where you would find suitable aircrew – E.T.P.S trained pilots maybe.
Good luck to them for getting this far – the task of keeping her in the air is actually a harder effort than rebuilding her .

Of course, this has been known for years. No one ever said it was going to be cheap, or easy.

You see! It doesn’t matter what you say, doubters will always twist matters to their particular point of view.

If it doesn’t come off, so be it – BUT why not support the project instead of throwing up walls and barriers unnecessarily.

The difference between those projects and this, is that there will never be a commercial payback, it doesn’t work like that. However, all of those projects were completed and used, which is the definition of success I am applying here.

By “limited budget” don’t misconstrue that to mean “impossible budget”. Limited means taking care to apply funds where need be – and not waste them employing unnecessary people to do unnecessary tasks.

It seems fairly obvious to me that this is putting money into a “priceless” heirloom, and therefore one should never expect any kind of “financial” return or reward, so I fail to see what you are expecting it to achieve financially.

BUT Housing keeping has to take place first.

What do THEY mean by that? Business plans and financial records are available for serious supporters, who can show serious intent and not wasting time or remaining funds on goose chasing exercises, I am sure.

I’m afraid that all sorts of projects fall foul of outside influences which simply cannot be catered for, or foreseen, when business plans are originally made up for huge projects such as this – Concorde, the Channel Tunnel, the Millenium Dome are just some of the projects that spring to mind. No one is at fault, it is simply that goal posts move, and we have to recognise that. And thus, plans have to become fluid.

And whatever you might say about those projects, they were all completed, and they were all used.

It simply doesn’t help to raise this as an issue at all, it merely muddies the waters and sprays doubt unnecessarily. Sometimes you have to trust people.

If, after so long, you still don’t trust the team, then say so.

Frankly, I’m just sick and tired of hearing all these same doubts raise over and over and over again. They are not as helpful as you seem to think they are, at least not here.

WITHOUT A VIABLE BUSINESS PLAN.

The project woudn’t have got anywhere without one in the first place. What makes you think there isn’t one?

Or should I say, is it necessary that they meet YOUR expectations rather than those required by the HLF and other bodies?

I really am quite fed up by this kind of thing. We hear it time after time, yet I still see the project progressing as of this moment in time.

In effect, people are merely quoting from “The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy”, whereby all the doors on the “Heart of Gold” spaceship insist upon you having a nice day, something like: –

“All the doors on this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.” Upon closing they usually say something like “Enjoy” or “Have A Nice Day”.

It is supposed to be satirical, I believe. Blame the great late Douglas Adams.