foresterI think you are finding irony a difficult concept to cope with?
Moggy 🙂
Perhaps, Moggy, a Moderator at least might refrain from adding to the “irony” (is that what it is?) and sarcasm which have brought this thread to point where the regulars just endlessly repeat themselves and anyone with something new to say just gets flamed.
foresterOk, so you’ve got the Mi-26, you managed to sling the load safely underneath and you’re running up the rotors in preparation for the takeoff.
Where are you going???
What destination??
Why???
Who’s paying???
How have you dismantled the load???
Pllease answer, I’m dying to know.
A.
Moggy answered your first three questions, Andy.
Who’s paying??? – The current hanger rental at Brunty would pay for it pretty quickly!
How have you dismantled the load??? – If the numbers are right, apart from removing the engines, undercarriage and fin, it might just get by without anything else needing to be dismantled.
It would have to travel in very short hops between airfields for helicopter fuel load reasons, as has been pointed out, and no-one would want to take it any great distance! But the fact that it might just be feasible to take it elsewhere would concentrate a few minds at Brunty, especially at the necessary hanger rental re-negotiation meetings.
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foresterA couple of Mil 26 helicopters might be able to do the job. 🙂
Septic.
No. One Mi-26 can lift 20 tonnes, it is claimed.
The Vulcan basic weight is around 36 tonnes, I believe. Deduct four Olympus engines at 3 tonnes each, remove the fin and the undercarriage and its down to 20 tonnes without even stripping out the hull.
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foresterAnd editing people’s quotes with the addition of smilies to alter the context to suit your response is hardly constructive is it.
Not guilty, Firebird. If you look at your post you will see the smilies at the end are all yours.
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foresterI’m trying to make you understand that while you may have the passion, you need to start to grasp the reality of some of the basic issues here, which you don’t seem to be doing.
😀 😀
Firebird. Your aggressive replies are unneccessary. I have no “passion”, just an interest in thinking outside the box. The project dies in two weeks. There are other interested parties who have declined to get involved under the present management. It is quite possible they may be interested in picking up some of the pieces. If they do they will have to do things differently. It’s worth thinking about how it could be done differently. That’s all.
Along with several others, your point of view is that there’s no other way (or it was a waste of time in the first place). Fine.
foresterAs for airlifting the airframe! Even if the weight could be reduced to circa 9 tonnes [my understanding of a Chinook lift figure], I doubt that anyone would touch it. The aerodynamics of the delta shape would make it prone to ‘fly itself’ once lifted, thereby becoming an unstable load and endangering the helicopter. The cargo net slinging requirements may also have a detrimental effect on the airframe.
But Chinooks have lifted airframes before. No-one disputes this airframe is large. What is questionable is whether stripped of engines, undercarriage, fin, control surfaces, even with electrics and hydraulics in situ, this is a particularly heavy airframe.
Establishing that it _could_ be done would go a long way to help in renegotiating hanger fees if a new team took over the project.
foresterWould somebody care to explain just WHY Marshalls should undertake the work at less than commercial rate? Whats in it for them?
IF the project is to survive, it will have to do so at its current location, and with the workforce it currently has, and with the Support of Marshall Aerospace.
But IS the work by Marshalls done at a commercial rate? They have the Trust over a barrel just as the owners of the hanger have. If Marshalls are seen to have exploited this situation no-one will ever approach them for a similar project again. The next rebuild to flying condition will be done in the USA or somewhere in Europe.
As to your second point clearly the project CAN’T survive “at its current location…….”.etc unless there is some radical rethinking.
Finally, exactly what weight could the airframe be stripped down to in extremis? Has anyone worked that out?
foresterYeah….pop a reality pill.
The “reality” is that Marshalls’ work is unaffordable and so is the present oversized hanger. The project has to be downsized if it is to survive.
Failure to grasp this simply leads to the scrapyard in two week’s time.
The question posed was, “What happens when the money runs out?” You jibe but make no contribution.
foresterWhile the Fundrasier in charge is on holiday until September and while Robert is in hospital, I am doing my best to recover the situation. If I fail, then I can walk away on September 1st and say I gave it my best.
It’s just incredible that as the project is about to hit the buffers the drivers are all elsewhere. But then they were never in fully control in the first place. That’s why it failed. A project is only as good as its managers, and this project was never properly managed.
So…
What happens at the end of August? The Receivers arrive. The Fund has no money? Its only assets are One Dismantled Vulcan? Presumably Marshalls will have bills outstanding? Assuming the Trust owes the HM Revenue and Customs or the Banks nothing then Marshalls get One Dismantled Vulcan in payment for work done? Then what? Marshall’s has no use for it? So it gets put up for sale?
And so Phoenix-to-the-Skies arises………..only this time with a different set of Trustees, smarter, wiser, more engaged with the project (after all, one or more of them will have committed his own money to puchase the wreckage). The commercial sponsors who quite understandably declined to work with the current Trustees might decide to trickle a little money in to test the water with the new managers. Some engineers are hired. Back in business (sort of).
What would the new Trustees decide to do? Surely the two things they must do is sack Marshalls and get the Vulcan out of that hanger? It could be moved. Without engines it could surely be airlifted under a Chinook or something out of the clutches of those who have exploited it to somewhere more friendly?
Having exhausted the goodwill of the HLF, the project would have to be downsized to fit its income, maybe flying would become a very long-term aim, work would slow down but it could still progress .
All of this is entirely hypothetical. If it’s wrong, perhaps those who know better would say what would (will) happen at the end of the month.
However, at this time, it seems to me that the best thing that could happen, both for the aircraft and all its many loyal supporters, is for the Trust to fold, get rid of all the people and organisations who have, through greed and incompetence, wasted so many millions of generously given pounds…
….and start again.
Any views?
foresterI’m sure the RAF Museum Cosford will entertain the British Aviation Preservation Council well, Roger.
Events to be enjoyed will include a treasure hunt for the Golden Rivet among the debris of G-ARPH, the long-anticipated gladiatorial combat between a JCB and G-ARVM, and a pin-the-tail-back-on G-APFI competition.
Well done everyone.
foresterThanks, Taffy.
I wonder how many other tales remain untold of well-intentioned but unorthodox attempts to fix persistent faults nearly ending in disaster: ferry and test flights with less-than-airworthy aircraft, high power engine runs that went wrong, engines started inadvertently, etc.
An attempt to “bump-start” a reluctant B747 engine by way of a very high-speed “taxi” springs to mind.
A quick “fix” on an autothrottle system with the engine still running (quietly and forgotten!) is another.
They all seemed like a good idea at the time!
Any more stories out there for the benefit of those who come after us – and who could easily repeat the misadventure?
forester………….and when it’s nice and clean we pull it out again ….
foresterI have no connection with DSP, and no reason whatever to believe it is anything other than an entirely professional TV production company.
However, writing as someone who once appeared in an aviation programme by a different company and wishes he hadn’t, may I respectfully suggest that anyone intending to co-operate in a future programme about the Comet, or any other aviation topic by any production company, first ask a few hard questions to establish that there is a genuine interest in facts, and an ability to deal with the complexity of issues arising rather than a desire to add to the sensationalism and misinformation that so often attaches to subjects like this, before getting involved.
foresterThis is something that really needs to be taken to the politicians.
If I own an historic house I can be prevented from demolishing it but if I own the Flying Scotsman I can’t be restrained from destroying it (and exactly that could easily have occurred just recently) The same applies to Concorde 002 or The Fighting Temeraire for that matter. We need legislation that allows artefacts to be identified as national historic treasures in the same way that buildings or geographical areas are protected.
Of course, protection from destruction is not the same thing as preservation but if you take the BA Collection as an example those aircraft could easily have survived another decade in the open and still have been worth restoring in the future once funds again become available. Now the option is no longer there.
Up to now we have assumed that once an aircraft has got inside the gates of a museum then it is secure. We didn’t reckon on Museum Directors behaving either irresponsibly or downright childishly. You wouldn’t expect the Director of the National Gallery to complain that The Hay Wain no longer fits into museum Policy (or decor) and insist that it is burned, but there’s nothing to stop him. These days Museum Directors take a delight in upsetting the people as it brings them publicity (and often a knighthood). Then there’s the other sort of Museum Director who is obsessed with tidiness and order and cannot bear things cluttering up his carefully laid out vista, or filling up his storage areas, and so he destroys things he doesn’t understand (like civil aircraft in a military aircraft arena).
I agree this has been a wake-up call. We should hold some kind of a convention to bring together people with experience and ideas, to identify what needs to be done and at the same time raise public awareness and involve the politicians.
foresterDerek Want, British Airways Director of Ground Operations and Chairman of the BA Heritage Steering Group (yes, there really is such a thing!) replied to three complaints in the BA News last week:
“The reasons behind the need to move the aircraft away from the RAF Museum at Cosford are complex. However, I can assure you that the outcome we have reached is much better than the position we were in a few months ago……We have been able to find new homes for all five aircraft (sic!) so that they can be enjoyed by generations, both new and old, of aviation enthusiasts” !!!
So you can see the problem. How do you negotiate with someone who can see the pictures of theTrident and 707 being broken up and still continue to assert that the aircraft have been found new homes?
Brooklands is said to be still negotiating for the VC10 but whether with BA or ASI I don’t know. It seems incredible that a first class aviation museum should be frustrated in its wish to acquire more parts of a heritage aircraft that no-one wants and is scheduled to be broken up.
Reading Derek Want’s literally unbelievable latest statement and looking at the “Doctor’s” track record of scrapping historic aircraft you have to wonder whether we can ever restore British aircraft preservation generally, and BA and the RAFM in particular, to sanity.
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