My PURELY PERSONAL view (i.e. NOTHING to do with FAAM or RN etc., and I would kindly ask everyone to respect that distinction): As I see it, this was an entirely PRIVATE matter. Bringing it into the public domain in such a way has, in my opinion, just generated a lot of largely uninformed conjecture which can only serve to make matters worse and in the process potentially may cause a lot of damage to ALL parties concerned.

A great shame that the moderators cannot see that and call a day on it, for everyone to simply shut up and allow things to take their natural course behind closed doors purely with those intimately involved. For everyone’s sake.

Lee, if I may, there has been no conjecture from our side, just a simple stating of the facts. And when facts are twisted if not outright fabricated in press releases and on BBC radio shows, I think we have a right to defend ourselves publicly and let our supporters/the wider aviation enthusiast community know what is going on. If we followed your approach, we would be royally shafted, lied about, and closed down- without anyone ever knowing why!

Purely MY personal view, of course.

Bruce, while I fully understand the thing about threads being pulled- indeed, I just said to Bill that such a thing may happen- it could be argued that as nothing is being said here that isn’t the simple truth- by our side at least- one would wonder exactly WHY such a thing may happen…people in high places with too much clout, perhaps? But anyway, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that- what’s going on here should stay part of the public record.

Anyway, I came online to have my own say in reply to the frankly disgusting press release from the FAAM. Bill’s said much of what I wanted to say, and will no doubt say more, but I have to say that the whole tone of that release felt as if it was belittling our efforts- as if we were somehow just helping the FAAM with bits and pieces of something larger that THEY were doing. Yet, WE created the Barracuda Project website, from nothing. WE do 99.9% of the work- all that’s essentially happened in Yeovilton was the initial laying out of the total wreckage- and the subsequent preparation work to ship it to us. WE have promoted the project to raise funds- indeed, just look how out of date the pictures are on their Just Giving page- we offered to administer that and keep it up to date, but the utter farce which that led to is another story for Bill to tell. WE did the diligence on all the known surviving Barracuda wrecks, and a few new ones besides, with the view to future recovery operations to get whatever bits we may have needed to complete a totally original aircraft; that included wreckage both on high ground, in this country, abroad, and under the sea. WE planned and executed a superb mini-expedition to catalogue a fair quantity of Barracuda wreckage and recover parts. I could go on.

In the meantime, the FAAM seemingly did NOTHING to promote the project, bar the out of date Just Giving link on their home page; they have a Facebook page which they barely use at all- where were the monthly updates to promote the diary, the latest progress etc?

Isn’t it funny how they let us do everything I’ve mentioned for two years and only NOW want this contract? How do they answer the fact that we offered to negotiate the contract, and they simply ignored that and shut things down instead? Why did they go to the effort of shipping the rear fuselage sections to us literally just a few weeks ago? Why did the curator visit us recently and personally help us carry the near-completed tail section out into the sunshine for a look?

Having been privvy to the time frame of a lot of this stuff, and many of the emails too, I’d be amazed if a bunch of Admiral-this and Captain-that trustees were consulted and aware of the decision to shut the project down in such a short space of time- I think we’re more on the receiving end of one person’s own decision/agenda.

Lastly, I don’t think for one moment that the Barra Project will continue after this debacle- or if it does, expect to see great big chunks of fakery being clashed together and called a Barracuda. We’d have delivered a machine that was 100% original material- they have now thrown that possibility away in the name of very petty politics, be they business or personal.

I say again- some people in Yeovilton should be very, very ashamed of themselves tonight.

I grew up regularly attending airshows and seeing a Vulcan displayed, balls out, on a sometimes weekly basis. I mourned it’s passing when the RAF retired it, and moved on. I was excited by the notion of it’s return, but the handful of times I’ve seen it have all been disappointing- a shadow of it’s former self, for totally understandable airframe and engine life reasons. Throughout all this, I felt that VTTS over-sold the type- it’s importance, it’s spectacle- to almost embarrassing degrees. Sad to say, I’ll not miss it when it is retired again- as I never felt that I truly had it back. I’m certainly not anti-VTTS, anti-Vulcan, a hater, or anything else that people get called for daring to be negative about it- I’m just being honest. (And yes, I’ve had my hand in my pocket for them nonetheless)

As for a ‘replacement’ type, I suspect the millions will vanish, and individual projects will just carry on scrapping about for cash as they always have. (Though I’ll throw in another vote for a Shack)

This tour will be remembered for a long time to come methinks…a delayed start to a then epic journey, the engine failure, now this incident, but all the while the massive public appreciation of them being here at all. God love them- glad to hear there’s no damage.

New diary, including a little sun for our Barra tail…

http://barracudaproject.co.uk/index.php?id=34

Just to reiterate, I’d be very interested if anyone knows of anyone who worked at the yard in the late 60s until it was cleared.

Cheers! Was waiting for an announcement on their Facebook or whatever, must have missed it. Was hoping they’d have the Union Flag T shirt on there though.