RE: duxfords blackbird

As far as I know, the plan is to leave her as she is…

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

Steve and Sadsack…thank you very much gentlemen…:)

RE: 60th Anniversary?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 25-02-02 AT 01:49 PM (GMT)]Well…how about…

February 27th February 1942…Operation Biting…

C Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment,
under Major John D. Frost, drops that night on a German radar
station at Bruneval on the French coast. Among the paratroopers
is RAF Flight Sgt. W.C.H. Cox, whose mission is to dismantle
parts of the German Freya radar set and bring it home to Britain
for study. Evacuation is to be by sea.

The raid is a complete success. British losses are two,
German six, but Cox brings home key German radar components and a
radar operator for interrogation. The raid boosts British morale
and Frost’s career, as he goes on to lead 2nd
Battalion the Parachute Regiment at Primasole Bridge and Arnhem
Bridge, and retire a Major General.

(Adapted from http://www.usswashington.com/dl22fe42.htm)

Or…

March 3rd, 1942: RAF Bomber Command, under its new C-i-C, Air Vice Marshal Harris (Bomber Harris), attacks the Renault plant in the Paris suburb of Bilancourt, causing serious damage to production facilities and killing many French workers.

(Taken from http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html)

Or…

The first Lancaster offensive by No44 Squadron against Essen, 10th/11th March 1942…

Am I close at all? 🙂
(Probably a million miles off but I’ll give it a shot!)

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 25-02-02 AT 12:36 PM (GMT)]”Nobody else has seemed to notice is that Duxford hasn’t got infinite room to build new hangers”…well I think more than a few people have noticed this…;)

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

I agree that the AAM is badly designed…I personally do not like it very much at all…it is too sterile looking for me…and I have no more desire to see aircraft suspended from the ceiling than anyone else here…it is the plan to suspend the C-47 that disturbs me most of all…both from a logistical point of view and in terms of the aircraft itself…and as for some of the aircraft they plan on suspending from the ceiling when the Hanger 1 expansion takes place well…the least said about that the better…but to me it is still the lesser of two evils to have a plane suspended from the ceiling than to have it scrapped…

It is a Catch 22 situation here at Duxford…if we keep aircraft outside they will deteriorate…and nobody wants this…but then we have the question of space…if we bring the aircraft in from the cold…where do we put them? As far as building new buildings are concerned, I am afraid I don’t think this will happen…personally I would rather scrap the Air Space project and build a new Hanger where the Hanger blown up in the Battle of Britain film was…but I’m not the Director of Duxford and I don’t have a place on the IWM Board of Trustees…

As far as the aircraft which remain outside, there are plans to restore the Victor to her former glory…conservation time has been mainly devoted to the Liberator project over the past couple of years alongside other projects such as the Anson and the York…unfortunately we cannot fix everything at once…as for the Shackleton, well I’m afraid internally she is not in such good condition as the Victor and there is still talk of ‘paring’ her down into a walkthrough aircraft…but if the option is either scrapping her entirely or salvaging part of her I know which I’d choose…

As for hands on elements…we do have the Flying Machine Exhibition at Duxford and there are plans to include many interactive elements in the Airspace Project…

This is the last I have to say on the subject…it’s not easy being a girl in a male-dominated business such as the warbird industry…sadly I don’t have the luxury of the experience of having served with the RAF or thirty years of being an enthusiast…I am lucky enough to work at Duxford and every time I drive to work and the familiar buildings appear I think how lucky I am and how proud I am to work there…and I will defend ‘my’ aircraft to the end.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone

Becka

RE: Sally B – any news ?

Hmmm…well last time I took a peek they were still hard at work, and I believe they are still working on her now…whether or not this is still the remedial work or general maintenance I’m not sure…I’ll see what I can find out for you 🙂

RE: Duxford American Air Museum Moves

David…I work in a museum…I’ve seen the damage done to exhibits over the years…

Generally I try not to make sweeping statements on this forum that I cannot back up with facts…and I am very sorry but I regard “undoubtedly the best museums in the UK are those that let people have a physical connection with the exhibits” as a sweeping statement…You do not have to get up close to and touch an aircraft to “get a connection” with the aircraft…and as for children…well one day I was in Hanger 2 and two young lads came in…they could not have been any older than 7 years old at the most…and one of them asked, “excuse me Miss, have you got any Hurricanes in here?” At the time, there were 2 Hurricanes and 2 Spits sat together, positioned Spit-Huri-Spit-Huri…and I pointed down the Hanger at these and said “there they are…now which are which?”…And these two little boys went straight to the aircraft and identified them correctly! Not too surprising for two boys who get taken to the airshows by their parents you think? Maybe, but these two understood the IMPORTANCE of these aircraft…and without touching them too…they were completely in AWE…I was very impressed and more than a little touched…

At Duxford we clearly have signs around the museum that request that people do not touch the exhibits…I support this general policy and not just as a museum employee…if people want to get up close and personal with aircraft at Duxford there are ways and means…personally I am more than happy to help people to do this and to show anyone round…and that includes people from this forum too…

And with regards to “if it was all about keeping a machine in pristine condition away from our grubby mitts, then why have Duxford got that Battle of Britain exhibition complete with pilot’s memories in photo and audio form?”…they are copies…

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree David…I guess I just see matters such as this from two perspectives…that of an enthusiast, and that of the museum, sorry

RE: I’m back!!

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 22-02-02 AT 12:21 PM (GMT)]Philo…;)