NASAM Update as of the 7th Jun 2022

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Chairman’s Update

CLICK on heading to GO

NASAM Chess (part III)

The new steps to allow access to the Lightning cockpit arrived late last week. This morning (Tuesday) we decided it was time to get them into position and ready for opening tomorrow.

Simple, they are on wheels, just wheel them into the hangar and put them alongside the cockpit.

Whoops, the hangar has tie bars on either side which are too low even with the steps on their back. Unfortunately with the steps on their side, they are too wide for the corridor. Slide them under the Provost wing, no, too wide to go between the Lightning nose and the Sea Harrier nose wheel.

Easy solution, move the Provost forward and go behind it. In order to do that we have to move the Lightning out of the way.

In order to move the Lightning, we have to unjack it off the stand and move two exhibits from in front of it, one of which was heavy enough to require the pallet lifter. Then the Lightning easily moved with six volunteers pushing.

Next, task jack the Provost off the axle stands. Fetch two trolley jacks. Another whoops, one tyre had deflated. Fetch the compressor.

Following this, the Provost was easily moved, by six volunteers again. The steps moved past both, the Provost moved back, the Lightning moved back, the exhibits move back, the Provost returned to the axle stands, the Lightning jacked up again and the steps moved into position.

Ten minutes to get the steps set up they said.

They are now ready to go though.

Steve

(Photos) NASAM Chess (pt 3)

General Updates

We have a smaller number of articles from around the Museum in this edition due to Volunteers being away. In addition to the Chairman’s Update above, we have articles from Barry in the Paint Team and from Michael in the Chippies Workshop.

We only have one small snippet of information this week, casting an eye back to an event a few days ago at the Museum when the Copdock Motorcycles Club came to visit.

Copdock Motorcycles Donate

I had a photo sent to me (see below) taken on the Aviation Art and Model Day. On the day we had approx 180 motorcycles from Copdock Classic Motorcycle Club. The club also had a display in place showing their work and some of the essential tasks undertaken by motorcyclists in the UK. The club was kind enough to make a substantial donation to the Museum, and the photo below shows the Chairman of the club handing over the donation to Lester C who was one of the Museum Volunteers on the day.

Pete S

(Photo) Copdock Motorcycle Donation

Painters Update

31/5/22 – Much ado about… er… not a lot really!

Yes folks, Mr UK Weather really didn’t play ball this week, which resulted in the team calling time earlier than usual.

The forecast was for showers throughout much of the day and that pretty much put the kibosh on any outside sanding or painting for the day. So, the team went in search of inside jobs…

Barry disappeared off to the Metal Workshop to continue cleaning up the Messerschmitt Bf109 starter/generator. By early afternoon this job was complete (see Bf109 starter generator 02), with all the accumulated oil and grease removed and any bare metal areas protected with a light coat of ACF50 preservative.

Back in the Main Hangar, the rest of the team were involved in a game of musical chairs, or rather a musical aircraft, as various exhibits were shunted about in order for the new Lightning cockpit inspection ladder (see Lightning Cockpit Ladder 01) to be wheeled into place. With the new ladder in place, the opportunity was taken for members of the team to sit in the cockpit in order to experience the pilot’s eye view; kind of (see NASAM Chess Pt 3 05).

Afterwards, Mark and Ian were collared by Steve to adjust (or rather cut down) the existing stand that supports the Hurricane approx. 1:10 scale model that’s next to the Percy Provost. Clearly, with aspirations to ‘upgrade’ themselves to the Chippies team, the boys broke out with the tenon saws and made the necessary adjustments for the model to now sit just off the floor, in a banked position (presume that was intentional and not poor woodwork? – Ed.) (see Hurrican Model 01).

Meanwhile, armed with some ‘Blu-Tack’ Cliff went about trying to stick photos of the relevant donor aircraft above each of the Ejection Seats with, it has to be said, not a huge amount of success. I’m sure he will return with industrial ‘sticky fixers’ next week.

And that was pretty much it for the day, with afternoon tea brought forward by an hour to fill the void.

Barry

(Photos) Painters Update

Chippies Update

Lancaster Flypast

Sometimes we don’t appreciate how big the Lancaster is. When it made its flypast over the Museum I was walking about 4 miles away and got a clear view of it as it performed its manoeuvres (1st photo below Lancaster Flypast) and could clearly hear its engines. But back to the Chippies updates…

24th May

Preparations continued for installing WiFi. This week Michael F and Ash decided to relocate the pole that was on the building behind the shop to the shop itself, mainly because we didn’t want to run yards of trunking. During one of our explorations of the metalwork stored behind the Engineering Workshop, we came across some heavy-duty brackets. Placing the pole on the end of one of these would let the pole clear the gutter, which we hadn’t thought we could when we put the pole up originally. And now we could drill straight through the shop wall to when the WiFi router is (see WiFi Poles 07), saving miles (well, yards) of cables and trunking. Like the painters we were dodging the showers, their shelter was a friendly Hunter nearby (see Hunter Shelter), ours was the Shop veranda.

Back in the dry of the Chippies Workshop, Morris gave the bookcase its finishing coat and Dave H constructed the new tail handle for the refurbished Red Arrow. Then Morris started sanding a small set of steps for Ian H for his Spitfire display.

26th May

Time to clear some space in the workshop. The bookcase in its nice new Red livery took a trip across to the Main Hanger. Fortunately, its wheels and chassis come from a supermarket trolley so it took the gravel reasonably well (see Bookcase 01).

Ray asked us on Tuesday to put the perspex fronts on his electronics equipment display in the Cold War Corridor to keep them safe and let him finish off the labelling. So today, Thursday. Ash and Michael F obliged. Of course the cabinets had settled and no longer level so the usual round of ungentlemanly language and tea breaks were required before we finished the job. We left the film on the perspex so a grand “reveal” in TV style can be done at the opening (see Cold War Corridor 01 and 02). While we were at it, we put the fronts on the aircraft model cabinets too.

Les meanwhile, ace painter that he is, expertly painted a bookcase for the shop (see Bookcase 02), then looked round for something else to paint. We Chippies are rapidly learning not to keep still in the Workshop on Thursdays otherwise we might turn an unexpected colour. Funny thing is, Les rarely gets any paint on himself.

Dave H got himself another job, in between refurbishing Red Arrows. When the Buck pub was renovated, they added a gate between their beer garden and our front aircraft park. There is two-way traffic between us but unfortunately, people wander through when one or other of us is closed. So Dave is making a noticeboard where the Buck and the Museum can display opening times and other useful information (see Gate Notice 01).

31st May

Today Michael F’s friend Tim from BT came to help professionally install the radio network which will allow us to spread WiFi to the Archive and the VRP. Tim and Paul the PAT tester, an ex-BT man too, got on like a house on fire. Radios got tested, cables got terminated, men ran up ladders, everything just happened. Michael just fell back into his old BT role of managing – each to his own. When Tim finished for the day, all the radios worked and could connect to the Internet. A big thank you to Tim and Paul for dodging the rain and volunteer meetings to get the job done (see WiFi Poles 08 thru 10), (the latter being on the windsock pole by the Visitor Reception Point -Ed).

Having finished sanding Ian H’s steps, Morris applied a coat of what is rapidly becoming the standard dark blue (officially Roundel Blue, I believe) for all the equipment supporting displays. At the rate he and Ivor are using it, we’ll need another large tin.

2nd June

No Jubilee for some volunteers, just another working day. Actually, there was almost a good reason for going to the Museum. Around midday, all work stopped as we tracked RAF aircraft on the Internet and watched while the BBMF Lancaster did a flypast over nearby Bungay (see Lancaster At Bungay 01 and 02), and later on, the Red Arrows raced by for some appointment over London (see Red Arrows Passing).

Michael F and Ash turned in network engineers for the day. Ash made a new shelf for the Shop so new network equipment could go next to the BT Internet router. When that was up, we started wiring everything together. Michael created some short ethernet cables to link the radios put up on Tuesday to the WiFi routers. It’s funny how a job you used to do a lot becomes forgotten as the first couple took ages. Mind you there were some planes to watch. But this afternoon the WiFi was working in the Archive, so we had the traditional cup of tea and went home.

Ash had got the roundels for the push-along Red Arrows so Dave H put them on the planes (see Red Arrows Push Plane 07). He then constructed a joystick for the new one, out of a bit of tubing and the end of a rolling pin for the handle. Amazing what we find lying around in our workshop.

Michael F

(Photos) Chippies Update

The Repeat Info

The repeat information is still here I’m afraid, and I make no apologies for keeping his section in our blog. We are a charitable organisation relying on monies from 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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