It’s the old question again – are you trying to preserve the airframe or the preserve the memories? The former means conserving the airframe in a static or semi-static form, whilst the latter means flying it.

In the railway world there are locomotives in the National Collection that will never be steamed again because they are untouched since they were restored in the 1960s at places like Swindon works or untouched since being withdrawn from service. Others that were so badly corroded after spending 20 odd years in the salty air at Barry scrapyard in South Wales needed a lot of the components to be replaced before they could be steamed again.

Coming back to aircraft – if a unique machine needed so much of its airframe replaced just to put it on display in a museum, then you might as well return it to airworthy status. But if it is relatively original, then my feeling is that it should be conserved so that it can be of benefit to future generations.

Regards,

Dan

Apache helicopter over central London just now, heading North.

Regards,

Dan

That does sound like a right planning balls up! I can see the logic behind the decision to move the aircraft park so that the public can get closer to them, but at the expense of the entrance and exit for cars?! Sheer madness.

The show looked quite good from my home – but it seemed as if the E3 Sentry only did two passes during the role demo and then joined the flypast at the end of it.

Regards,

Dan

Eurofighter has already displayed at Biggin – getting quite a good view now that we have skylights in the roof 😀

Regards,

Dan

EH-101 Merlin in-bound for Biggin Hill from the north.

Regards,

Dan

It looks like it is standing on a circular area of concrete – I can’t see anywhere on the Woodvale aerial image that could align the aircraft with the hangars.

Regards,

Dan