NASAM Update as of the 3rd Dec 2021

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Chairman’s Update

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What on Earth – Part II

In the last published post, “What on Earth” we gave details on how crashed Zenair CH601 Zodiac G-CDFL was brought to the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum @ Flixton for the fuselage to be trimmed down, and the wing stubs reduced in size to fit into the Flight Simulator section of the Museum. This work will be carried out over the winter recess and the computer hardware from the ANT-18 Link Trainer will then be incorporated into the new fuselage.

Well, since the arrival of the Zodiac at the Museum, the Groundforce team had been eying up the trailer. Once the fuselage had been off-loaded, they quickly asked if the trailer could be used to take the trimmings from the various plants in the ditch near the car park to the composting heap at the back of the museum.

A quick load and then run the hundred yards to unload again probably saved them half a dozen loads on the usual handcart.

Steve

Winter Break and Open Two Days

The museum is now closed for the winter break, apart from the two days Special Opening on Wednesday and Thursday the 29th and 30th December. On these two days, we will be open from 1000 until 1400.–(click here to see our recent blog on the opening period).

Please keep in touch via this blog or our Social Media pages for details of when we will reopen again in 2022. At the moment it is planned to open again in late February for regular visits.

Social Media and other museum pages can be found by clicking on the button below:

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General Updates

A number of updates were received over the last two weeks from various Volunteers around the Museum.

Moving Day

Cliff sent in the pictures on Tuesday 23rd as they moved parts of the TSR2 that we have at the Museum were moved along with undercarriage legs from the “V” Bombers to make way for an additional storage container that was due to arrive on the 25th of Nov. The container will be used to store exhibits whilst we move things around and also pending the decision on what to do with some items.

The TSR2 parts (Moving-TSR2-01 thru 03) and Vulcan and Victor undercarriage legs (Moving-Landing-Gear-01 the 07) will stay in their “new” temporary position whilst a decision is made on where to site them later. The undercarriage parts may well go on loan to the City of Norwich museum in 2022 for their Falklands display.

Brian arranged the telehandler which was kindly loaned free of charge by our local farmer, Mark Hadingham and operated by one of his employees. Mark, indirectly, has family connections with the RAF wartime buildings at station 125 once occupied by the USAAF Bungay Buckaroos.

Cliff also was present and provided the photos when the storage container did arrived on Tuesday 30th of Nov. This was late on in the day and the lift and place was only completed in the dark as can be seen from the photos (Container 01 thru 05).

(Photos) Moving Day

Painters Update

23/11/21 – But is it Art?

Unusual goings-on at El Museo this week. ‘Jill’ an artist from Beccles dropped by the museum (by arrangement) in order to take some photos for a themed exhibition that she’s currently putting together. Her theme is portraiture of the local business community at work. Having exhausted her supply of compliant shopkeepers in Beecles, Jill spread her wings (no pun intended) to encompass other businesses in the area. Sensing that aircraft backdrops might potentially make impactful paintings, she was keen to grab some reference shots of the museum volunteers ‘at work’. After a brief conflab beside the Whirlwind, our resident male models (Mark and Ian) were offered a brief opportunity to strut their stuff and pretend to work (no change there then! – Ed.) in front of the Valetta. Having bagged the shots that she was after ‘Jill’ went on her merry way. We await the playback; in oils; of the awesome twosome. But will it be ‘art’?

In amongst this creative frivolity; and with Mr UK Weather once again playing very nicely for the time of year; Gwen was able to complete her refresh of the markings on the nose and the tail of the Javelin by the front gate (see Javelin Refresh 02).

Back at the Whirlwind, the returning supermodels (Mark and Ian) plus Barry completed the grey priming of the Whirlwind fuselage (see Whirlwind Repaint 12), just ahead of a likely downturn in the weather from next week. That just leaves the rotor gear plus the rotor blades to prep, probably in the Spring. The Whirlwind will wear its grey coat over the winter while the team potentially spends many hours surfing online for some reasonably priced non-fading red (and white) paint! All suggestions welcome.

30/11/21 – Operation P6

It was a case of ‘ensalada mixta’ at El Museo this week with a variety of activities being carried out by the team during the day. A reasonably mild and dry-ish morning facilitated the completion (ok, the missed bits) of grey priming of the Whirlwind by Barry, with the final drops from the primer tin being applied to the rear wheel hubs (see Whirlwind Repaint 13) (how exciting?! – Ed.). During the Whirlwind prep, Mark and Ian had noticed that the port wing of the Sea Vixen was looking particularly grubby and so they set about pressure washing off all the ingrained crud (see Sea Vixen 01). In for a penny, the boys also gave the F100 an end of season wash and then blew off the accumulation of sycamore seeds that had built up on the recently refurbed Meteor. Having finished off the little bit of priming, Barry mixed up some ‘Big Boy’ filler and set about effecting some repairs to the (leaking) cockpit roof on the Whirlybird.

After lunch, the rain set in so the team moved indoors and scouted the hangars in search of inside jobs for the winter. Keen to avoid being roped into the Martin-Baker project, the boys identified (with John’s help) that Boulton & Paul P6 was in need of a clean and possible re-paint in parts. Earlier in the year, John had seen mould accumulating on some of the wing surfaces and set about treating the mould and then re-painting the easier to reach (and more visible) surfaces on the lower wing. After a quick recce on an A-frame ladder, it became apparent that the top surface of the upper wing was covered in a significant layer of dirt and mould (see Boulton & Paul P6 01). So, Barry and Ian spent the rest of the afternoon clearing away neighbouring exhibits and then erecting the ‘scaff’ tower, ready to commence cleaning of the P6 upper wing next week.

Barry

(Photos) Painters Update

Chippies Update

November with the “Chippies “

Memorial Bench – First, the new memorial bench we’ve made for Les to remember his wife, Patricia, and sister, Jackie. A bit of carpentry by Dave H – we occasionally do some of that – to remake the surround for the seatback. Then some more painting – we do lots of that, but the aircraft paint team can rest easy, we don’t want their job in the cold and the wet. And there we have a fine bench for Les. A great team effort and we were all happy when he came in and absolutely pleased with what we had created (Bench Refurb 11 thru 15).

WiFi Network – If anyone is interested in what the red poles on the Archive and the Shop are, well they are for the WiFi network. Ash and Michael found some useful aluminium poles in the metal store which are just the right length to mount the radios on, so appropriated them and raised them up (Wifi Poles 01 thru 04). Michael’s friend Tim, an ex-colleague and radio engineer from BT, has agreed to help us install and more importantly correctly align the radios. He visited the Museum on the last open day for a site visit and to look at the exhibits. The challenge of aligning the radios can be seen from the size of the shop pole as seen from the VRP..

Tim decided that the pole on the Archive was too close to the power lines and ideally some branches need to come off a tree. The Archive pole moved and watch your heads for the branches coming down. As BT is an organisation that gives its people time off to volunteer, Tim will be back on a workday soon to help finish setting everything up.

NAAFI Refurbishment – Our first post-closure project in the Hangar is to put in a lower ceiling in the NAAFI. After much pre-closure debate on the best way, we settled on sheets of multiwall polycarbonate, the stuff used for greenhouses and cold frames as well as many other things including, Dave H discovered, the ceilings in the Museum toilets. Fortunately, we were able to find sheets 2m by 1m which would fit the area to fill exactly at the height we wanted.

First, we put up wooden beams to support the edges and we’re using aluminium L-section to support the sheets. Ash had the brainwave of using plastic joints but cutting away on one side, which attached to the wooden beams, this stop the polycarbonate flexing.

Of course, as anyone who has worked on the Hangar knows, there are interesting quirks to the building. High on the list are the building frames which are not a friendly 2m apart. Nonetheless, by the time we finished on Thursday (24th) we had half the ceiling up (NAAFI Refurb 01 thru 05).

We should be finished by the time this blog gets published and everyone can go back to their tea and coffee without extra sawdust.

All the best

Michael

(Photos) Chippies Update

Once again many thanks to the contributors for their input to this edition and to the dedication that they put into their Volunteer work.

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The Repeat Info

I make no apologies for keeping his section in our blog, as we are a charitable organisation relying on the public to keep us going. Any help we receive is gratefully accepted and enables the museum to continue in our mission “To conserve, preserve and promote the history of aviation in East Anglia, whilst providing a fun, family-friendly and interactive museum, promoting education and remembrance of the events of the past“.

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