NASAM Update as of the 24th Oct 2022
[joli-toc]
From the Chair
Spot The Difference
From the Chair 202210C
Recently the Vampire has been turned through ninety degrees in order to present a better image for visitors entering via the personnel door to the hangar. Whilst the aircraft didn’t go far it took a lot of shunting and shifting to get it into its new position, plus five other aircraft had to be moved.
Winter projects
What does it mean for visitors?
Whilst we aim to do the vast majority of the work on our projects during the museum’s closed period over the winter, some of the work will start earlier or finish later. The main impacts on visitors are likely to be:
- Whilst we are working on Luftwaffe Weg in the main hangar, parts of the corridor on the right of the hangar may be closed intermittently from 1st November. We will aim that most of the intact displays can be accessed from one end of the hangar or another.
- The work refurbishing the 446BG building is unlikely to affect visitors accessing any of the displays in the building.
- The work on Boulton Paul Hangar will mean that various displays are empty from 1st November, hopefully, all complete by our February reopening. It is possible that various parts of the building will be closed for part of the time as well.
- The work on Rooms 2 and 3 (behind the shop) will take a longer time. The modellers den will remain open throughout. Room 2 will be closed from 1st December through to late February. Room 3 will be closed from 1st November to Easter 2023 due to the major work taking place in there.
We do not anticipate any other disruption during our projects, but it is possible that some closures are necessary whilst we move exhibits to or from the directly affected areas.
Steve B
General Updates
We start this update from the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum with a continuation of the “NASAM Chess” reported by Steve back in June and earlier (above). This, the shuffling of aircraft and exhibits in the Main Hangar continues, no easy task, with only people to push and move. Each move of an aircraft is accompanied by the movement of many others. Also, Steve gives us an update on what the over-winter work will mean to visitors.
Volunteer of the Year
Speaking of Steve, and his role as “Chief Volunteer” at the Museum, it is with much pleasure we can report that Steve won an award this last week from the Association of Suffolk Museums. The words below are from the Suffolk Museums press release.
Six of Suffolk’s outstanding museums and their teams have been announced as winners in this year’s Suffolk Museum of the Year Awards, at a ceremony at The Hold in Ipswich on Monday, 10 October. The awards evening was hosted by Georgy Jamieson of BBC Radio Suffolk. The winners were:
- Large Museum of the Year: Food Museum
- Small Museum of the Year: Felixstowe Museum
- Family Friendly Award: The Red House
- Innovation Award: Bawdsey Radar
- Working with Young People Award: Halesworth and District Museum
- Volunteer of the Year: Steve Bell of Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum
The awards are organised by the Association for Suffolk Museums to celebrate and champion the county’s incredible museums and the hard work and dedication of their staff and volunteers.
Winners were chosen by an independent judging panel, including representatives from SHARE Museums East, a museum development organisation, the University of Suffolk and Community Action Suffolk. They reviewed the 31 public nominations that were made for all of the award categories, representing 15 of Suffolk’s museums.
Volunteer of the Year Award 2022
The award for Volunteer of the Year was collected on behalf of Steve by Ian D, who also drew my attention to the presentation. Thanks, Ian, for getting this into the blog.
Scout Activities Day
Just a little forward notice that there will be a Scout Activities Day at the Museum on Saturday, the 29th of October 2022.
The Museum will be open as normal on this date, but certain sections of the Museum will be closed for parts of the day, in rotation, to facilitate the education of the aviation students.
Continuing with the updates, we have a couple of submissions from Barry, and both updates reported on the completion (well, almost) of the Whirlwind Repaint. Barry then continues with more Javelin News
Next up is more from Graham in the Archives. This time it is the first of a series of four short articles taken from a wartime publication. These “one-liners” reflect what was happening in 1939.
The final update in this edition comes from Malcolm, who has been continuing with his model-making and repairing, His MMU update is below. I particularly like the JU-87, as this is one of the unstarted models my grandson donated to the museum when he stopped model making.
Pete S
Painters Update
11/10/22 – It’s Decals Week!
Yes folks, it was Decals Week on the Great British Paint Off this week. With the weather set fair, EPS rocked up to fit the main decals to the Whirlwind (see Whirlwind-Repaint-49 pic). As is custom and practice at this time of the year, the first hour of the day was spent drying off the aircraft to be worked on. Once the sun came round and hit the Whirlwind EPS were able to start, working their way down the port side in the morning, then moving on to the tail fin flash around lunchtime. After some mumbling and grumblings about the number of rivets on the Whirlwind, but fortified by some tea and biccies from the NAAFI, Paul and Jayden spent the afternoon working their way back up the starboard side. This included the fitting of the very impressive computer-generated 2FTS logo on the fuselage door (see Whirlwind-Repaint-50 pic). Time then ran out so EPS will be back to fit the Registration Number (XR485) and Squadron Identifiers (‘Q’) sometime in the next few weeks. We also have a number of very small decals to fit ourselves in various places across the aircraft. Even at this stage, with only some of the decals fitted, the Whirlwind is starting to look really sharp (see Whirlwind-Repaint-51 pic).
Elsewhere, the Javelin re-paint moved on a bit, although most of the morning was written off due to the very heavy dew the night before. After lunch, a limited amount of painting was possible, mainly of vertical and under surfaces. On the tail Mark set about cutting in the Deep Sea Green to the Dark Grey (see Javelin-Repaint-55 pic). Back on the ground, Cliff continued painting some of the underwing surfaces in High-Speed Silver while Gwen masked off the intersections between the upper camo and the lower silver (see Javelin-Repaint-56 pic). It will be a close-run thing as to whether or not we can get the Javelin fully top-coated before the weather peters out.
18/10/22 – Be careful what you wish for!
We were all wishing for a bright, warm, dry, sunny day to enable us to get the Javelin repaint finished before the outside painting season ends. And that’s exactly what Mr UK Weather served up on what proved to be a glorious autumnal day; warm enough to be down to a t-shirt only at times. Unfortunately, this bright cloudless day had been preceded by a cloudless night, during which a huge amount of condensation had formed and apparently dropped on the ‘Flat Iron.’ Therefore, pretty much the entire morning was written off to drying off the old bird. The only surfaces that proved paintable during the day were vertical surfaces, with Mark and Ian drying down the port side of the tailfin, ready for a coat of Deep Sea Green (see Javelin-Repaint-57 pic). After lunch, Mark went on to paint the recently repaired engine intakes and engine covers (see Javelin-Repaint-58 pic). Elsewhere, Gwen gave the Javelin’s nose another coat of Gloss Black, while Cliff blacked up the tyre walls. It remains a close-run thing as to whether or not the team get the Javelin finished this autumn.
Next door, it was ‘Groundhog Day’ with EPS rocking up for a second (sunny) Tuesday running to finish applying the main decals to the ‘Whirlybird.’ Paul and Jayden spent the morning fitting the aircraft squadron identifier letter Q’s and the registration number XR485 (see Whirlwind-Repaint-52 pic), which look great! After that, they spent the rest of the day shuffling the ‘scaff’ in order to fit the twin yellow ‘hazard’ stripes to each inner and outer rotor blade section (see Whirlwind-Repaint-53 pic). By the end of the day, the decals were 90% complete, with only a few small pieces of ‘stencil’ type text to apply to the fuselage and tail, which we (mainly Barry) will do ourselves next week.
Barry
(Photos) Painters Update
From the Archives
Odd Facts About The War Part I
Printed in “The War Illustrated” magazine on October 14th, 1939 – these stories (below) have been taken by the magazine from various press outlets and daily newspapers and offer a slightly cock-eyed view of the outbreak of war.
How true they are is in the eye of the beholder…
Graham
He Gave Hitler Orders
A former Austrian army officer, who claims that he often gave orders to Hitler during the Great War, has enlisted for active service with Canada’s defence forces. He is now a naturalized Canadian.
Berlin’s English Church
The English church in Berlin, which never missed a service during the years 1914-1918, is to remain open for as long as possible. The English chaplain has been ordered to leave Germany, but services will be carried on with the assistance of an American Episcopalian priest.
Pray Silence for…
Men eating in Berlin restaurants were arrested and sent to gaol because they talked loudly during a propaganda broadcast.
Camels Join Up
Camels are drawing ploughs across fields in Northern Germany. They formerly belonged to Hagenbeck’s Circus, the owner of which has placed all his animals at the disposal of the State. Elephants are also being trained to plough.
Italy Rations Gas
The household consumption of gas in Italy is limited from September 21 to seven hours daily.
MMU Update
As you can see, I have finally completed the Ju-87 Stuka. Whilst a reasonably easy kit to build, there were several challenges, the painting of the canopy being one (I used a canopy masking set but for a different make of kit, which meant the masking was not exact to this model). Some of the decals were challenging, they were on the thick side and did not adhere to the model without a lot of decal fix. I think it came out ok in the end (see Model Ju-87B-2 07).
Have also completed the restoration of a Tempest V. This model was well-built and too good to scrap, but the original paintwork was dreadful, so a full repaint has been done. Markings depicting a 501 Sqn aircraft based at Bradwell Bay Essex October 1944 made up from my spares box (see Model Tempest V 01).
The final photo shows the “flight line” at the Bury MMU displaying the emptied box of trainers I found at my last museum visit, some of which I am looking to refurbish for the new trainer display (see Model Trainers Flight Line 01).
Malcolm
(Photos) MMU 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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