[QUOTE=Consul]

g45

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“Auster J/1 Autocrat G-AGOH to leave Museum

The museum trustees have reluctantly taken the decision to terminate the ongoing loan agreement for Auster J/1 Autocrat G-AGOH.”……………

What a darned shame …. I admire the NAM and am pleased they have a balance of military and civilian machines on charge – but the Auster is under-represented in civilian guise across the preservation scene and G-AGOH is a significant airframe in relation to Midlands aviation industrial history. All praise to NAM for having housed it on loan for some considerable time but disappointing it’s chosen to be displaced when some of the other types at NAM can be found in profusion in other collections. Let’s hope ‘GOH doesn’t have to go into store and can be found another home where it can be viewed.

I spoke to someone at NAM yesterday but wasn’t able to find out anything about G-AGOH’s new home.

I was advised that as their website states:

“The aircraft is expected to leave the museum site early in 2007. The space created in Display Hangar 1 will give us greater flexibility in the under cover display of several other NAHR listed airframes in the National Benchmark and Significant categories.”

http://www.newarkairmuseum.co.uk/news.cfm

There is a whisper doing the rounds at NAM that next year the space will accommodate another rare aircraft that will be returning to the museum.

I was also reminded about the Auster AOP.9 fuselage and wings from XR268 they still hold in deep store waiting to be restored.

Gnome

Below are a couple of links that I have found particularly useful in recent months

http://www.worldwar2exraf.co.uk/

http://www.lostbombers.co.uk

Group 1

The runways from RAF Balderton were used for hardcore when the A1 was made into a dual carriageway back in the late 1960s. Much of the former site has now also been mined by British Gypsum.

Wilf

The report that I read in the local paper stated that the council wanted to revoke the site licence as a vehicle reclamation yard because it had not been used for this purpose for approx 5 years and that they wanted it cleared; including the Lightning.

Another member of the Avro lineage, the Avro Shackleton was also ‘hangared’ on a similar rail system. I have seen photographs of the rail systems in situ at RAF Ballykelly, Northern Ireland and that RAF station even had its own railway line & train I believe.