Hello Chaps, the 747 was a private owner who was storing it on site with the aim to turn it into a man cave i believe, under the workmanship of StuArt aviation. it left site at the start of last year i believe but we are unaware of where it went too, unless the boss Thunderbird167 knows.

On site wise we have recently became the proud owners of an aircraft tug, one which served on the HMS Ark Royal ( not the last one) pics to follow, it has already earned its place in our collection as it has proved invaluble lately for the recent moves we have had, most recently in preparing the lightning for its future move into the display hangar. 

The volunteers over the last few month have dug in deep and made some amazing progress in reshaping the collection and making the site more user friendly.

I would urge anyone who is up north for any time to pay us a visit, or make the journey to check out the progress. (when we get off of lockdown that is)

Have included a topside view of the Vulcan to see progress so far.

for regular updates, please follow our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/nelsamofficial

our website is also http://www.nelsam.org.uk

[ATTACH=CONFIG]256473[/ATTACH] as Requested Mr C, Malcolm doing some well needed cleaning, i believe there will be a service on the afternoon of Remembrance Sunday, i will check and get back to you though.

Hi Cadman, the entire starboard side needs to be redone, aswell as the underside, the port side has been completed which is what looks presentable, if you check the museums facebook page you can see the stbd side needs some work

Hello all, a bit more of an update for you all as we have been quite busy as of late, especially Thunderbird167 and his powers of persuasion, we have some serious progress on site 🙂

Hangar number 1 which is our admiralty type hangar, has received a very well needed facelift.

you can see the comparison between panels on this photo.

And this is the 90% finished product ( us volunteers need to do a bit of framework on the skeleton of the hangar to finish it off

Something i would like to share with you are these items that we were recently donated by a gent who is an Ex RAF Navigator, he popped in a few weeks ago to see if we would like them, which we clearly said yes too

how amazing to have his log book (which even listed flights over Sunderland too)

and his RAF Uniform which also has a north east connection, it was tailored down the road in the town 🙂

so, last but not least, im sure this will get a lot of people excited, i know it has with us lot, our resident Vulcan XL319, is getting a make over of sorts, again thanks to Tbird’s negotiations, a local company (who’s name i will get on here) has donated the use of scaffolding in order to get some much needed TLC for the old girl, which also has a go fund me/virgin just giving appeal being set up to assist the museum in raising enough funds for the restoration. i will update further when we get more details on that, for now here’s a picture of 319 getting scaffolded in preparation.

We have a new facebook page set up which is constantly updated with news, restoration progress, events and facts, we would be extremely grateful if you could like the page and even have an input on it.

https://www.facebook.com/NELSAMOFFICIAL/

Thank you all for reading, another update will follow shortly.

Usworth Phantom

Hi Steve, we’ve found that on the rear of the airframe, there’s no primer, and the paint isn’t sticking properly, plus there’s a lot of corrosion underneath which is now appearing more and more, it needs treating along most of the boom and starboard side, however the front of the airframe is fine, that doesn’t appear to be corroded and there’s primer under it.

there is also a panel or 2 that need repainting due to cracks and holes.

Regards

Hi Guys, sorry for the lack of updates recently, there has been a lot going on (all good things i might add 🙂 we should now be in a position to have more regular updates from the museum.

so to start, from the last few weeks, our resident lightning appeared to of had some sort of allergic reaction to something, so we cleaned the panel that was most affected down to start with, sanded her, then applied some primer ahead of giving her a lick of paint.

close up of the primer after first coat

Our project manager/Vulcanite Ian has been out with his trusty paint brush working on XL319 while the weather was ( well we are in the north of England) workable, the old girl is starting to look like she should 🙂

Heritage open day arrived and as we were occasionally required for tours around the museum and XL319’s cockpit, we had one or two new members join us and the weather wasn’t too favourable to be honest, so our wet weather project got some TLC, Whirlwind XN258 is undergoing a make over, we got the new lads to help us in sanding her down ready for some primer. the door still needs to be taken off in order to replace some panels on the airframe

Tail boom being worked on

Danger that way <—

She does look good though 🙂

The tram lads are progressing well with their various trolley buses and trams, I must say they are looking good, i will try to get some pics when they next turn up.

Tony and team trident have done some sterling work on G-ARPO, she looks phenomenal now compared to what she was, just tail and wings to go now, keep up the good work guys

couldn’t help but capture this shot last Saturday

Thanks,
Stay tuned for more updates