Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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#1852827
CloudHound wrote:I've checked and I understand the hotel will have a roof top bar and balconys overlooking the museum.

Can't wait


I am not sure I share your enthusiasm for a view of a museum roof and a row of corroding airliners.

Rob P
JAFO, Sooty25 liked this
#1853101
With the land warfare hall closing to become storage (planning permission is already approved) as well as this new M11 hotel the museum is going to be somewhat reduced :(

Are there any plans to actually open the corroding airliners? There is a good collection but whenever I’ve visited over the last few years they have always been closed - either in the summer or winter.

There are always people working on the outside of them but what’s the point if they never open?

In the winter they have signs outside saying they can’t open them due to the weather… yet Brooklands museum opens their airliners all year round.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1853103
JR_MAS wrote:With the land warfare hall closing to become storage (planning permission is already approved) as well as this new M11 hotel the museum is going to be somewhat reduced :(

Are there any plans to actually open the corroding airliners? There is a good collection but whenever I’ve visited over the last few years they have always been closed - either in the summer or winter.

There are always people working on the outside of them but what’s the point if they never open?

In the winter they have signs outside saying they can’t open them due to the weather… yet Brooklands museum opens their airliners all year round.


The airliners are maintained pretty well by a large team of unpaid volunteers many of the old boys actually worked on them when they were flying.
They are called the British Airliner Collection (BAC) and run by the Duxford Aviation Society.(DAS- a registered charity)

DAS depends on volunteer stewards to open the airliners: A rota system is in place and as many airliners as can be found stewards on a particular day are opened on a particular day.

The only certainty (because DAS has a contract with IWM for this) is that Concorde is opened every day and takes precedence over others.
DAS, being a charity, runs on a shoestring so if JR_MAS wants to see all the airliners open, he should go to a IWM Display day (an ever dwindling set of events) as this is the only time DAS can make any money, by selling for a few quid a 'boarding card' to allow access to all airliners fully open and staffed by knowledgeable stewards.

Even then people attending a IWM airshows whinge at paying extra for the 'boarding passes' and we have patiently to explain that DAS has nothing to do with IWM,is not financed by IWM (except Concorde contract) .

Of course the four airliners protected in the Airspace museum are able to be opened all year round.

Most of them will understand but I have had a few spirited discussions with punters on this very topic.

In fact as the East Anglian Aviation Society, DAS preceded the IWM's presence at Duxford by many years.....

To write this valuable asset off as 'a collection of rusting airliners ' does a disservice to the army of volunteers, engineers and stewards who would dearly love to have enough funding to give them the care they deserve.

Peter
(Former DAS British Airliner Collection Steward).
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#1853104
PeteSpencer wrote:To write this valuable asset off as 'a collection of rusting airliners ' does a disservice to the army of volunteers, engineers and stewards who would dearly love to have enough funding to give them the care they deserve.


Peter, I am well aware of the 'against the odds' work of the DAS volunteers, and no slight was intended to them. It was merely acknowledging that however much care and attention is lavished on an externally stored/displayed airframe in the UK climate, it is merely slowing down reaching the inevitable end result, which will be a pile of corroded metal.

JR_MAS wrote:With the land warfare hall closing to become storage (planning permission is already approved) as well as this new M11 hotel the museum is going to be somewhat reduced


But as the nice lady from IWM tweeted not so long ago, viewtopic.php?p=1809124#p1809124 Duxford isn't primarily an aviation museum. This without offering too much insight into what it actually was. The poor dear seemed a little confused.

Rob P
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1853156
Rob P wrote:
Peter, I am well aware of the 'against the odds' work of the DAS volunteers, and no slight was intended to them. It was merely acknowledging that however much care and attention is lavished on an externally stored/displayed airframe in the UK climate, it is merely slowing down reaching the inevitable end result, which will be a pile of corroded metal.

Rob P


My italics

Could have fooled me ! :roll:

Rob P wrote:
I am not sure I share your enthusiasm for a view of a museum roof and a row of corroding airliners.

Rob P
#1853160
At Jet Age, we've had to keep the Trident (and other aircraft interiors) closed even as we have reopened other parts of the collection, as it would be impossible to enforce social distancing within and sanitisation between visitor groups. But we have been able to enhance the interior presentations, which we look forward to being able to show when we can.

No entry fees, of course :)
#1853161
PeteSpencer wrote:Could have fooled me


Quite probably, but that doesn't alter the fact that those airframes are corroding.

They are metal and they are out in the British weather 52 weeks every year

Rob P
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1853166
Rob P wrote:
PeteSpencer wrote:Could have fooled me


Quite probably, but that doesn't alter the fact that those airframes are corroding.

They are metal and they are out in the British weather 52 weeks every year

Rob P


Maybe inevitably so but IMHO DAS makes a pretty good job of restoration and repainting to minimise even conceal the visual aspects of corrosion so as not to spoil the consumer experience.

There is an ongoing programme of repainting but this has to fit in with IWMs first dibs on the restoration hangar in Airspece

It will be a very long time before they reach the stage of piles of dust suggested.

As for British Wx H 24 ; the main reason for closure is to prevent hoardes of punters traipsing rain and mud through the open aircraft. The dehumidifiers do a pretty good job but don’t remove mud dead leaves and dirt ,

Meantime @Rob P, as it’s a self confessed long time since you visited Duxford how about atrip over to see the improvements made in the last decade?

You might even be grudgingly pleasantly surprised :wink:
#1853167
PeteSpencer wrote: @Rob P, as it’s a self confessed long time since you visited Duxford how about atrip over to see the improvements made in the last decade?

You might even be grudgingly pleasantly surprised


I will be fascinated to see the improvements the last eleven months have brought. :D

Rob P
#1853223
I've honestly never understood what a bunch of airliners had to do with the Imperial War Museum or Duxford.

Surely the incredible thing about Duxford is the significant part it played in aerial warfare from the very first days during WWI, through the Battle of Britain and the USAAF operations here and into the start of the jet age.

It was only an active RFC/RAF airfield for 44 years but that took us from Bristol Fighters to Hawker Hunters.

Nothing to do with airliners, though.
#1853232
JAFO wrote:I've honestly never understood what a bunch of airliners had to do with the Imperial War Museum or Duxford.

Surely the incredible thing about Duxford is the significant part it played in aerial warfare from the very first days during WWI, through the Battle of Britain and the USAAF operations here and into the start of the jet age.

It was only an active RFC/RAF airfield for 44 years but that took us from Bristol Fighters to Hawker Hunters.

Nothing to do with airliners, though.


According to this dozy mare it's not got much to do with aviation at all, or land warfare, come to think of it.

Rob P wrote:
JR_MAS wrote:With the land warfare hall closing to become storage (planning permission is already approved) as well as this new M11 hotel the museum is going to be somewhat reduced


But as the nice lady from IWM tweeted not so long ago, viewtopic.php?p=1809124#p1809124 Duxford isn't primarily an aviation museum. This without offering too much insight into what it actually was. The poor dear seemed a little confused.

Rob P


Maybe it would be better as a housing estate?
#1853241
Many thanks for the information Peter

DAS seems to run parts of the land warfare hall? They’ll lose out when it closes sadly.

With the reduction in flying days the DAS funds are likely to take a hit.

Unfortunately further so as I know of several IWM members who won’t be renewing. IWM only have one premium option for renewals which costs nearly double what the standard annual fee was before.

I was a member of the original ‘friends of Duxford’ back before the IWM closed it and replaced it with IWM membership. Duxford was the only one of the IWM sites I was interested in.
Last edited by JR_MAS on Wed Jun 16, 2021 9:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1853243
JAFO wrote:I've honestly never understood what a bunch of airliners had to do with the Imperial War Museum or Duxford.

Surely the incredible thing about Duxford is the significant part it played in aerial warfare from the very first days during WWI, through the Battle of Britain and the USAAF operations here and into the start of the jet age.

It was only an active RFC/RAF airfield for 44 years but that took us from Bristol Fighters to Hawker Hunters.

Nothing to do with airliners, though.


That, if you don't mind my saying so is a typically '(Ex) Military' approach: Nothing matters in aviation except warbirds.

Plenty of wartime airfields with just as much as/probably more wartime history than Duxford have long since bit the dust , either disappeared to farmland or housing estates.

Duxford was also on the way out disrespectfully allowing serious military stuff (a main hangar) to be blown up by film makers in 'Battle of Britain'.

But ir was rescued by private aviation and the East Anglian Aviation Society with a remit to celebrate the development of British Civil Aviation.

It became DAS, recognised for its efforts: Indeed Dan Air donated two significant airliners, the Comet which made the first paying Transatlantic jet flight (beating the yanks by three weeks) The same Comet was at the personal disposal of HRH Duke of Edinburgh in 1950s for world travel, and the Ambassador.

The Trident was a ground breaking airliner, the first to be equipped for a zero-zero instrument landing.

The Super VC10, the last airliner to be fully constructed in the UK was fought over in its early years by US pax for its silent travel and top speed.

It was used 8 years ago for the BA 'We fly to serve ' advert, charting the development of BA services.

The government gave the First pre production prototype of Concorde in view of its civil history to DAS for preservation.

When the IWM came along and muscled in it tried to keep Concorde outside in the weather (since 1977) as it was clearly seen from the M11: Fortunately common sense prevailed and Concorde came inside (But only since 2006)

So look upon Duxford as a wreck of a disused military airfield that no one was much bothered about, till it was rescued by DAS and the IWM quickly saw it as a dumping ground for its surplus ex military stuff.

It wasn't till the groundswell of wartime nostalgia that the cousins got interested and chucked up the abortion that is the American museum.

So the Airliners have every right to be there.

Though sadly as a charity dependent on IWM airshows but getting no income from IWM (except Concorde q.v.) and seriously hit by Covid/Land warfare closure,I fear for DAS's future

Peter
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#1853249
PeteSpencer wrote:... the cousins got interested and chucked up the abortion that is the American museum.


Interesting. What do you see as the issue that makes the AAM an "abortion"?

The Concrete Woodlouse is not to my taste, but I am happy to acknowledge that the whole site can't be as I would design it.

Rob P
#1853253
I'm fully aware of the history @PeteSpencer but it is now the Imperial War Museum so old airliners have no place there, regardless of how and when they arrived.

That view has nothing to do with the fact that I am ex-military and everything to do with the fact that this is currently an IWM site. The Churchill War Rooms do not have a selection of 1960s and 1970s fashions from London (while it was disused); IWM North doesn't have a bit dedicated to Coronation Street (which is filmed nearby); there isn't a 1976 Isle of Man ferry moored next to HMS Belfast simply because it's a vaguely interesting boat.

Duxford is not an aviation museum, it is a museum dedicated to those - both service and civilian - who have served this nation in conflict and, of course, most notably, those who have served at Duxford. That is the sole purpose of its continued existence. Anything else is superfluous.
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