I’d reckon that once this job is done any museum wanting an undercarriage leg will be able to have one. They’re the most uncrashable piece of structure I’ve ever seen.

Wow, is it a year since the last open day? I’ve been to the last two but didn’t get an invite this year – wait ’til I speak to them next!

It would be great to showcase some of the Barra’ there next year. Our tail isn’t far away from having the tailplane stuck on top of the fin for a photo opportunity so I’d imagine it’ll be done and painted by the next open day. I shall speak with the powers that be about an unveiling or similar. In the meantime, if anyone is in the NE and wants to call in for a peek give us a shout, we’ll soon equip you with a sweeping brush and a kettle.

Excellent work Mike & no qualms re using wreck site material from “our” area, when it is for such a worthy cause – though might be wise to point out a little of the procedures involved in getting the necessary consents for your exercise, as making light of it on your diary may seem to some that such sites are a free for all? Sorry to nit-pick – Keep up the good work.

Fair comment, we tend to make light of pretty much everything but it turns out our fire damaged tail actually came from that site in the first place so we were only borrowing a little more of it and we only took what we needed and now it’s in the elevator.
Yes, getting the necessary permissions is something of a tortuous path, we know because we’re slowly working towards obtaining parts from other sites but we’re very specific about the parts we want and don’t want to disturb anything that isn’t relevant.

Got the last skin done for the upper surface of the tailplane last week. We reason that unless the FAAM starts allowing people to come in with step ladders this will rarely be seen so if there’s anything to learn (and therefore ****-up (used a word that means the same as a male chicken but the swear filter nabbed it)) we’d rather do it here. The other side is the one that’ll be inspected to death by aero-anoraks for a rivet out of place so we’ll do that last when we’ve got good at it.
One interesting thing though – we found enough areas with immaculate original paint to say with absolute conviction that we’ll have the colours right when we paint it.

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Try mailing our resident historian, Neil Sheppard, he will likely know.

[email]sheppane@gmail.com[/email]

Wow – that’s early. I’d say 1956 straight after his first record on Ullswater. Do you have any more?

Not heard that one but it’s worth a look. Will fire off a mail asking what hoops we’d have to jump through this time.

I think the Hydrographic Office is superb in what it does providing accurate data for mariners and the UK charts are a thousand times better than many charts we’ve worked with from other parts of the world. It’s just that as soon as someone suggests we start looking for something based on their data I quickly get other ideas.
Anyway – back on topic – we have only one panel to mend for our Baddacooda tailplane now and we can fully skin it. Not bad going. Will post a pic or two later.