Undoubtedly there are issues to be addressed, as have been highlighted by various forumites, but as this thread starts out I would like to add a quote from the Association of Independent Museum’s website, which I feel provides an interesting insight into the importance of the independent museum sector.

“Over half the museums in the UK are independent of government and local authorities and run as a charitable trust or company.

Independent museums owe their origins to individual and community endeavour. They are consumer and audience focussed rather than driven by external agendas.

Independent museums are guardians of some of the UK’s most important heritage assets. Over 100,000 volunteers work in independent museums, equivalent to 82% of the total workforce. Independent museums contribute up to £930m to the UK economy.

Independent museums have significantly influenced museum practice in the UK through promoting creative approaches and commercial entrepreneurship.

Independent museums are regular award winners, including the Art Fund Prize and the Museum and Heritage Awards for Excellence.”

Lots of similar papers and consultation work in this subject area can be found on their website. http://aim-museums.co.uk/

NAM has re-run a news item on its website about the P.1216 development model that is displayed in Hangar 2, which is picking up on the BBC ‘Cold War Hot Jets’ theme that is currently doing the rounds. 😉

Peter, on another thread I posted a request about Air Gunners and the positions that they flew in the aircraft; and below is part of that post that gives some context:

“………. yesterday on behalf of NAM I accepted the donation of a Log Book that belonged to a RCAF airman who trained at 1661 HCU – RAF Winthorpe and who eventually went on to Ops with 619 Squadron. Sadly he was killed on the Wessling Raid on the night of 21/22 June 1944.”

In this Log Book are a series of entries between 6th October 1943 and 11th November 1943, of his time with 17 O.T.U. at “Turweston and Silverstone”.

He recorded a total of 23.30 hour day and 16.00 hours night on Wellingtons, each entry has the serial number of the aircraft he flew on – would this information be of interest to you?

Apologies those hours were with A-Flight – additional time was then spent with C-Flight until 13th December 1943, by which time he’d accumulated a total of 85.10 hours.

I’ve just had a small piece of feedback from the curator, which reads as follows: “We do have copies of this magazine from number 1 up to about number 35 in the Archive. I have not received any lately but the odd one might have migrated to the table in Hangar 2.”

The table in Hangar 2 that he refers to is mentioned here and this is now being used as a fund raiser for ‘Project Panini’ – the new café / play area project!

As mentioned in the earlier post I’ll check next week, but it seems that NAM may also need edition 36!! 😉

I’ve revisited this thread this morning and looking back at G-ORDY’s post #24 I seem to think that the second-hand book / magazine shelf in the NAM Shop may have some copies of this publication on sale.

When I go over next week I’ll check this out and get back to you with any details.

Rat Acc – How about looking at a second report from Amarok circa 2011!

I havent see the report but my last visit to Lyneham August 2010 I did a close walk around Saggy and felt she is in pretty good shape the RAF did a good job on the exterior (I have 30 + years in aviation engineering RAF, BA, Monarch, BAe and Marshalls) interior wise is a different matter with mould and mildew, a steam clean and replace the floor beams with marine ply and you will have a good workable base to start but again not as bad as the comet at Cosford (if you look close at that aircraft it IMHO is in worse shape than SAGGY)
the other factor is this is still an operation base and currently have a specialist team on site carefully taking the old C130K’s to bits. I read NAM had set aside some monies to purchase the Nimrod
I can’t help feeling some one is missing a trick here, a museum if it plays it right they could get a bargain basement Comet and the money saved could go to help restore her ??
1. you have the RAF engineering personell who could dismantle saggy (They leave May)
2. The specialist team currently moving hercs might be willing to help move saggy for a nominal fee (don’t know till you ask as they say ??)(Again they leave soon)

even after the aircraft reaches the ‘Museum’ while it is in bits a proper assessment could be made I am sure if saggy can make the journey she can be restored. The feedback I am getting so far is “We have looked at the report, we have not physically seen the aircraft so based on that we are not interested”

It seems to me he has the necessary qualifications and experience to make an informed judgement.

Strikes me as strange that the RAFM survey from 2009 painted a bleak picture yet until very recently they were voiciferous in asserting that the move would happen!

When the Lyneham Comet situation first arose a few years ago I did see a copy of the RAFM report and this was discussed by the NAM trustees. At that time the Nimrod R1 acquisition and move by road was being pursued and they opted not to do anything with respect to the Comet.

Subsequently NAM withdrew from the R1 purchase and some of the allocated funds were eventually reallocated for the Jaguar T2A acquisition.

Both topics (Lyneham Comet and Nimrods) have been extensively discussed about these parts.

From a personal perspective and as posted before, I believe that pulling out of the R1 acquisition was one of the best decisions NAM has taken. IMHO the Comet decision i.e. not to pursue it; falls into the same category!