Hi Mark re your “add ”
Please find attached a Post I put on another board about Point Cook when it finally got sorted out a while ago
“I have been involved as an interest in Warbirds for many years and my first experiances date back to 1961 when I visited Bankstown with my father and looked over the collection of Sid Marshall including many historic and signifigant aircraft.
I have followed events over the years with great interest and we should all be proud of what has been achieved here and in New Zealand in the preservation and restoration fields.
For my money the great dissapointment has not been the numbers or types of aircraft or even the numbers of people involved. I have even been anoyed by aircraft types leaving the country such as the Oscar which was the last surviving complete aircraft to have attacked this country ( surely the single most important aircraft to have left our shores). The single most irritating thing about Warbirds and aircraft preservation is the total lack of commitment by the Federal Government to in any real way commit to a national preservation of our aviation heritage. In the UK and the US – even Guetamala there is a National commitment to preserving National aviation heritage and finding sufficent resources to commence and foster ongoing sustainable preservation.
The history of Government funded projects is lamentable starting with the scrapping of many aircraft scheduled for preservation after WW11 and culminating with the NASM debacle of the last decades which resulted in nothing tangable rather than a few political press releases near election time and wasted everybody’s time in the movement.
The recent salvaging of Point Cook wouldn’t have happened if a lot of good people hadn’t stood up and said enough!!
The past is past and now lets move on but I would really hope that the growth potential centered on Point Cook for our movement is really exploited for the good of all and that we can get behind it and support future development there to build the type of facility we should have had all along and one to be proud of as a nation.
The RAAFM is a fantastic basis to work with and build on – they do a great job on what has been very megre resources and their growth potential is vast given the avilability of new airframes to work with. Great initative has recently been shown with their arrangement to restore the P40 in return for surplus Boston Components as well as the great work they have under way on the Mossie etc.
I hope there is also scope at point Cook to work with the vast amount of Civil types of historical significance. We still have a fantastic opportunity to preserve what remains and perhaps even bring back some of whats been lost overseas if we are careful.
I have not intended in this note to propose what should be done but to ask all of you what you think – lets see if we can collectively come up with a series of strategies and put our thoughts to the powers that be.
My thoughts only
What does everyone else think”
Regards
JohnP
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