Thanks Scott. Just to push my point a little further, wouldn’t it be nice to see scenes like this again at East Fortune. 🙂

Some of the less charitable people around could even argue that the sums spent and publicity gained from the Concorde was an ideal distraction from
the debacle of the Scottish parliament!
I would be interested to know the amount spent so far as I guess it must be information in the public domain. The inspection of airfields in Scotland by BA was obviously to view the possibility of a flying Concorde arriving in Scotland. As pointed out that is now history. I will be interested when the final figure for all the Concorde move and rehousing is available. I guess it must rank as the most money spent on the preservation of a single airframe in the U.K.

I’d need to check, but IIRC, the National Museums were given £2 million. This, however, was not for the single airframe but for the development of the whole Museum of Flight. As I say, I can’t guarantee this is 100% accurate, but the supplement to the Annual Report should be out soon I think which would provide detailed figures.

Whatever

Clearly you don’t believe me. Fair enough. I don’t know who it was you spoke to, and I’m not seeking names because that wouldn’t be fair on those particular guys. However, I can guarantee that APSS is still on site and doing some work on Wednesdays (and other days). Not as much as they would like, but they are still there, and you can contact the APSS if you don’t believe me. You may have spoken to some disenchanted members, but they clearly were not giving you correct information. If you contact the committee, you will get more accurate information. I visit the Museum of Flight as often as I can, and I’m in regular contact with the secretary of the APSS, as well as attending the AGM, so whether you believe me or not, I do know a little about what I’ve posted here.

Hi

I can’t have been in the same place then – it is best just to differ on this and move on and I had lunch with the guys off site as I was invited several months ago. I don’t need to have an issue over this it is a difference of opinion that’s all

Regards
John P

Well, no, I wouldn’t class it as a difference of opinion, but a difference of fact. It is a FACT that APSS are still on site. It’s as simple as that.

I’m not denying there is a problem, and there are certainly airframes that the volunteers have not been allowed to work on, such as the Vulcan and the Beaufighter. However, that is entirely different to your statement that they had been told not to turn up for work (even though they are unpaid volunteers). The fact you spoke to them over lunch shows that they are still on site! My point is that your comment was incorrect and does nothing to help resolve the situation. Anyone on this forum, who hasn’t been to East Fortune in recent months, would think the APSS weren’t even allowed on site anymore, which is certainly not true. There are still a number of ongoing projects, even if NMS isn’t utilising APSS’s skills as fully as it should.

Would it not have been easiyer to fly the Concord to East Fortune if nothing else it would save on the costs of putting the thing back together.

I can’t believe we’re going down this path again. This point has already been raised in the past. There simply was no alternative to transporting G-BOAA because it could not fly. It did not receive the modifications after the Paris crash (such as Kevlar lining to the fuel tanks) and therefore was not airworthy. G-BOAA could not have been flown to East Fortune or anywhere else. End of story. Alternative transportation therefore had to be found and, sadly, this meant cutting the wings off.

Good point. I missed that. 😮

Alastair,

From the same site as mentioned above, confirmation of the Kennedy connection with the B17s:

Radio Controlled Bomber Drone. Project Aphrodite. The idea was to pack an aged bomber with 10 tons of explosives and fly it into the impregnable submarine pens on the French coast. A pilot was required to get the bomber airborne and trimmed so that a controlling plane could fly it to the target. The first plane exploded over England before the pilot had bailed out. The pilot was Navy Lt Joseph Kennedy, eldest son of that family, who was being groomed for the presidency, a post later held by the second son, John F. Kennedy.