Thanks Bruce

Hi Bruce,

A quick thank you for letting us visit yesterday. As others have said it was good to put a few faces to a few forum-names, and to see how things are going.

The expansion plans discussed by Phil B during his intro look ambitious, but I hope to see the museum expand as planned, and get more aircraft under cover.

Sorry to hear we missed the open Comet and Dove – we were defrosting ourselves over a cup of coffee with the Museum volunteers, and then had to leave for the trek back to the South coast.

Hope to drop in again, based on time since my last trip to Salisbury Hall (in the late 70’s) this may not be before 2030 or so 😮 , but hopefully I won’t leave it so long this time.

Paul F (and “Mark F”)

Caption Competiton…

“Some people have no consideration for other road users – fancy leaving that yellow thing thing parked there, can’t they see it’s on double-yellows. How the hell are we supposed to get past it?”

Paul F

Aerial Lighthouses

Hi Janie,

Er, no, the beacon at Shoreham is a much smaller affair without a revolving lens/mirror affair. It simply flashes out the morse ” … …. “.

I haven’t got any photos of it, but from memory it looks to be about two feet tall, and I guess a foot in diameter, and seems to be formed from one “folded”, or multiple small, neon tubes mounted vertically in a cylindrical glass housing. It is simply mounted on the apex of one of the hangars – nothing so elaborate as the structure in the link above which looks more akin to a coastal lighthouse?

Paul

Thunder and Lightnings

Re-read it myself a couple of years ago when my daughter brought it home from the school Library “for Dad coz I know he likes Lightnings and they’re in it book“. I never read it in the 70’s (though I don’t know how I missed it), but I would agree it is well worth finding, especially if, like me, you are still a big kid at heart!

Paul F

BA and it’s Pension Fund

Not strictly relevant to the main thrust of the thread, but I was told recently that the sudden deficit in many large organisations’ Final Salary Pension funds has been brought about by a change in the way the fund value and fund commitments must be written into the comapny’s finacial statements. I.e. in some cases the fund is not in as serious a position as it now appears on the “books”, but the rule change in the way assets and liabilites in funds must now be calculated and declared in Company balance sheets has lead to the sudden spate in reported “problems” with so many pension funds.

(To any accountants out there, sorry if the terminology is incorrect, or if this info is totally wrong – I’m a tecchy not a bean counter.)

So, perhaps this change in financial regs hads given some organisations a convenient “excuse” to allow them to drop projects they no longer wish to fund?

Paul F

Bruce,

As you so rightly imply, “collecting” and “preserving” are not necessarily the same thing, and that’s what I was trying to say in my earlier post. More thought needs to go into the allocation of “retired” large airframes on the basis of securing a sound long term preservation, rather than simply allowing them to boost numbers in any “collection”.

I understand the needs of a museum/collection to evolve, both in terms of attracting the paying punter on repeated visits by offering something new, and in terms of redefining the aims of the organisation.

I just hope lessons are learnt by us all if/when the ‘dozers do have to roll at Cosford. I guess we recognise the risk of losing ‘planes like the Blackpool Vulcan if/when they are sold “outside” the recognised preservation movement, but I suppose it’s the fact that the Cosford airframes are located within the environs of an established aviation museum that makes their possible loss so much harder to accept.

Being based on South Coast there’s little I can do other than write to BA and RAFM expressing my concerns, as I’m too far away to offer physical help in caring for them. If a “Save the Cosford Four(or is it Five?)” fund is started I’ll try to chip in, but I think I’d rather send the cash to somewhere like London Colney or Brooklands where I think the long term future of the aircraft in the collections is more secure than is the “BA Collection” at Cossie..

Paul F

Some constructive input at last

Bruce,

Good to see some constructive input rather than just more “knee-jerk” reaction/debate on the matter.

Thanks, will use your questions in my letters.

Paul F

Seafire,

I’ve got a Canon D660U flat bed scanner which has a mask/holder that holds both 35mm mounted slides and 35mm neg strips. It scans at up to 2400 dpi (IIRC)quality, which seems to work reasonably well for my needs. I guess I could construct alternative masks to suit other formats too.

Currently it seems unhappy to work with my new PC and I’m about to try new drivers for it (new PC is Windows XP O/S rather than Win ME on my old PC) but a new-buy scanner would be Okay with all current o/s.

I only paid ca. £125 (new) for it some four years ago, so shop around and you may find something suitable at a reasonable price.

Paul F