Philip
Ask the average person in the street if they’d like to pay more tax to preserve old aircraft–stand back while you receive the answer.
A friends young son cannot have medical treatment on the NHS for a potentially serious disability because funds apparently are not available to provide it.
If we raise taxes at all, surely it should be to include stuff like this first.
Seeing that the Tories are already hinting at Tax cuts as a potential vote winner at the next election I can’t see much chance of little Ben getting his free treatment or bigger heritage budgets.

Yes, it is Money, Money, Money–it’s what makes the World go round.
Remember Fagin?–‘In this life one thing counts, in the bank large amounts’.
I probably don’t like it anymore than you do but it’s a fact.
Cheers
Andy

Andy

I knew many years ago (through my fight to save RAF Driffield) that saving out aviation heritage is a low/no priority for those with power, and your right that the health of the nation is a priority. But I think that spending money on our aviation past is as important as spending on Opera or Ballet or our Maritime Heritage.

Money Money Money – if only as a nation we appreciated our aviation industry and heritage more…

Why? :confused: Hendon was an airfield. Besides, what airfield would be close enough to London to allow all the tourists to visit it, that perhaps only have a passing interest in aviation?

RAF Northolt

Melvyn Hiscock wrote: [snip] if you were to take a little time and effort you could research what actually happened and not trot out more of this garbage.

The Royal Air Force Museum is a national institution responsible for protecting our aviation heritage. Back when the Beverley was scrapped plans were already being drawn up to improve the facilities at Hendon and Cosford. My understandind is that lateral thinking was not applied nor suggestions or offers of support taken onboard. The Beverley was scrapped because it was a large, ugly transport aircraft and not a sexy Spitfire or Hurricane. I take onboard suggestions that it was in poor condition, though I have yet to see the inspection report.

The RAF museum has its faults but the Beverley was not one of them. Throwing unresearched brickbats at national museums on public forums does nothing to make them listen when there are issues that need to be addressed.

If the buggers can get away with it once, they can get away with it again. Take for example Duxford’s Comet C2, Cosford’s Victor (scrapped because the nose was moved to Hendon – I would have stored the nose-less airframe at Cosford). You don’t have to display an airframe – just store it for future generations – look at the main national museums and the stuff they have in store.

Here is JDK’s comments about the Beverley from a thread just over a year ago.

The RAF (NOT the RAF Museum) owned Hendon’s Beverley, and didn’t look after it. When it was well past saving (rotten throughout) they gave it to the RAF Museum, who had no choice but to scrap it. A smooth Civiul Service style dump and run.

True, the RAF did own the Beverley but when it was scrapped it was owned by the RAF Museum. Taking it apart and storing it onsite was the most viable of options, and if they had done so, then I’m sure I wouldn’t be writing this and the HLF would have come to the rescue by now – as part of either the Hendon or Cosford upgrade.

The scrapping of the Beverley might just show that someone runnning that museum is not fit to be in charge of historic aircraft. Close the museum and disperse the collection to some of those private companies and collectors who risk everything to maintain historic aircraft.

If I was in charge at the time I would have carefully taken the aircraft apart, crated it up (protecting it from the elements) and stored it onsite until funds were available.

Whitley
Hampden
Halifax
Stirling
Wellesley
Virginia
Thor Missile Complex (single launcher)
Scrap the B17, B25, P51, P40 – just to wind people up :O)

I would set up an independent inquiry into why the Beverley was scrapped and sack those responsible.

I would also get rid of that metal spike (why??????). I would create a winding brick path between the buildings. Repaint the Airfix Spitfire and Hurricane. Offer a free bus service from the centre of London. Paint the Battle of Britain Hall (camouflage scheme). I would also move Hendon’s control onto the museum site. I would also clean the top of the lift in the new Milestones building – why have a glass lift when you can be bothered to tidy up after building it.

I had the same idea to build a Halifax bomber. The idea was to collect scrap metal from various wrecks and under strict supervision have the metal turned into ingots and/or sheet to be used to build a new airframe. I think it would have be feasible, but costly. You would have needed maybe 400% of the metal used in the finished product to make it viable. Obtaining the correct grade of aluminium from various sources was also another issue raised at the time.

Would it be a more accurate airframe? I think so. Knowing that “that” Halifax flying overhead consists of material from a number of named aircraft in my opinion would have made it less a replica and more original. As with most postings on this Forum the key to success is and always will be MONEY.