NASAM Update as of the 19th May 2023

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From The Chair

East Coast Pirates

The second Sunday in May is always a busy one for the museum and this year was no exception. That is the date that The East Coast Pirates visit. Well over 100 classic cars turned up on the day, and over 1000 visitors enjoyed the show. Unfortunately for the second consecutive year, we were so busy that at various times we had to turn visitors away as the main car park, all grass areas, and the large overflow car park kindly loaned to us for the day by Emma Gilham were all full.

In addition to the show cars we had a couple of other visitors of note, the first was a flypast by a Spitfire of the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The aircraft performed three very spirited passes, initially coming in from over the main hangar, the sound of the iconic Merlin engine being heard well before the aircraft came into sight. Once again the museum would like to thank the BBMF for their support.

The second visitor was more unusual. We are often asked if dogs are allowed on site (they are if well-behaved and on a lead). We haven’t been asked before about ferrets. It seemed reasonable that if the ferret was well-behaved and on a lead, the same rules apply. The ferret was indeed well-behaved, and on a lead. It attracted a lot of attention, not least from the museum volunteers.

Our thanks have to go to the museum volunteers as usual. On busy days like this, the on-site volunteers work very hard. We mustn’t forget the others who work hard behind the scenes to ensure that the museum looks its best on such days. The day is the busiest of the year in the NAAFI with several volunteers taking shifts in there ensuring that everyone that wanted one got a cuppa.

All in all another fantastic day with our friends from East Coast Pirates.

Steve

(Photos) East Coast Pirates

(Photos) Spitfire Flypast

The photos below of the Spitfire flypast from the RAF BBMF were supplied by Bernard Feek who was a visitor on the day. Our thanks go to Bernard who posted these on our “Friends of – Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum” Facebook page along with a number of very good photos of the vehicles that attended (PS).

General Updates

In This Edition

From the Chair

In this edition of the Online Flier, we have (above) a report from Steve, the Chairman, on last Sunday’s special event day at the Museum. This was the annual turnout by the East Coast Pirates Car Club. Great Yarmouth’s biggest car club once again held its annual pilgrimage to the Museum (for the 12th time) with a really eclectic mix of vehicles. Also on the day the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight had one of their Spitfires carry out a flypast over the Museum. My thanks go to Bernard Feek who allowed me to use his Spitfire picture above.

From the Teams

Below we have input from just two of the teams this time round. We kick off with Graham from Archives who seems to have discovered another gem in the Archives. This time it is a dictionary of slang in the RAF. Good luck with reading this one. 😀

The Painters provide the last article, with Barry giving us a one-week update this time round and the latest on the Hunter which as you can see is undergoing a repaint, and the Mystere which is having its stripes refreshed. It is interesting to note that the Hunter seems to have had kindred spirits, paint-wise, with some of the motors that came along last Sunday.

This Weekend @ NASAM

Below we have details of two events this coming weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday this week we have something extra for visitors to see on a visit to the Museum.

Saturday the 20th of May 2023 we have a local Westfield Sports Car club visiting with around 10 or so of their immaculate hand and sometimes home-built sports cars. We hope that they’ll arrive with us at the Museum around lunchtime and we’ll be parking these machines among our vintage aircraft. With a little sunshine, the effect of vintage aircraft and well-maintained sports cars together in the same place will be worth plenty of photos.

Sunday the 21st of May 2023 we have the Aviation Art and Model Aircraft Show at the Museum. This will be a great day out for the whole family with stalls, instruction, and things for the children to do and see including the chance to meet and watch artists from the Guild of Aviation Artists who will be onsite. The Museum will also be displaying artwork from its own archives, including some paintings which normally do not see the light of day.

We do not have a full list of the attendees at the show, but we know on the modelling side – the Ipswich Plastic Model Society will be with us, and we have high hopes that the West Suffolk Model Club will also be attending the day.

If you missed the Spitfire last Sunday, here is another opportunity to see a Spitfire as the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight will again schedule one of their Spitfires to provide a flypast over the museum at some point during the day. These visits are rationed, and we are lucky to have an aircraft from the RAF BBMF two weekends in a row. As always the flypast is subject to weather conditions here, and at their base, aircraft serviceability and other operational commitments. The timings will be advised on the day , their schedule is tight and they will fit us in when they can.

Pete S

FromThe Teams

From the Archives

Dictionary of RAF Slang

From ‘A Dictionary of RAF Slang’ by Eric Partridge – 1945, but reprinted – as a Penguin book…!

If anyone were to tell you that they were browned off at being forced to go gravel bashing by the Camp Comedian as part of a fizzer for putting up a black or even a boob then, even if you hadn’t a clue what they were saying, you could tell that had seen service in the RAF, and probably in the war years. You may even choose to walk away at that point.

Service slang is distinctive and evolves very quickly – but its very different according to the service involved and the war being fought. It also has a habit of persisting into civvy use and brings colour, a sense of both irony and humour and can be a very easy effective way of clipping the sort of chap who is likely to shoot a line or become a binder.

Eric Partridge’s ‘The Dictionary of RAF Slang’ – recently discovered on the Archive shelving, sheds light on various areas of life in Light Blue – especially for aircraft-related activities. For a fighter scat, for instance, with a flap on, peelo’s would leap for their crates, push it through the gate, haul on the beer lever, hoick off and go full bore to grab for height hoping to get to the bucket of Hun before they sowed their cabbages. If the Gen Man was on the beam and the gen was pukka, then the ringmaster could avoid stooging and go straight to the party. Once it had been buttoned up, and provided you hadn’t frozen on the stick, bought it, gone for a burton or jumped out the window then it was time to hit the deck. Its interesting to see fifteen terms listed for crashing one’s kite – including crumper, prang, touching bottom, cracking down and calling the Sid Walker gang (reference to cockney comedian Sid Walker’s famous song ‘Day after day, I’m on my way, Any rags, bottles or bones?’ – humour may have evolved a bit since then…) – and only four listed for a pukka landing, including a three-pointer and pulling off a daisy cutter. Any arrival that didn’t call for a blitz buggy was tiggerty-boo [sic].

Bus drivers, on the other hand, loaded with cookies and cabbage and flying lankys, wimpeys or pulverisers were equally dependent on the gen wallah to get them to the crump dump, although they did have their onboard gen box to help. They would lose their nursemaids all too early and have to depend on their drones and the erk in the dustbin to keep the jerry night crawlers away as the flicks and flaming onions poked up from the ground to find them. The office and the navvy would be talking to each other right up to the target and, at the right time, they would play the piano or dump the taters. Then it was head for home and hope for char and a wad. The successful return home of all bombers from a raid was given, by the brass but not the crews, the moniker ‘a pair of white gloves’, supposedly borrowed from the legal profession where a judge whose calendar is free of crime is given a pair of white gloves by his colleagues. No, I’ve never heard of it either.

Introducing Ladybirds and bluebirds to a station was to Waafize it. The erks and Waafs took time to acclimatize together – I’ve written about how RAF Martlesham Heath was slow to deal with their more testing interactions in the past – but the slang seems to skew very much more towards the erks point of view. For instance, Passion Killers – the airwomen’s service knickers, were noted as being either twighlights (the lighter summer variety) or black-outs (the navy blue winter weights). Eric Partridge noted that it was a ‘wise directive’ that purposely made them as unromantic in colour and design as it could be imagined. What the Waaf’s referred to the erks as he failed to record.

There is plenty more in the 64 pages of this 2016 reprint of a 1945 original, but I’m on a print deadline and must rapidly dedigitate. You’re welcome to call in to the Archives and have a borrow though…

Graham

Painters Update

16/05/23 – Hunter punters!

Yes folks, a bit of a milestone to report this week. The Hunter prep is complete!

Under balmy morning skies, the boys set about finishing the last bit of sanding on Hunter, which was all down at the sharp end. With everyone converging on the last elements to be sanded, this required the team to get a bit ‘up close and personal’ (see pic). Social distancing was however observed via the utilisation of dust masks and no painters were harmed during the process. By lunchtime, the Hunter prep was complete. Mark and Ian, therefore, took a couple of minutes out to reflect on a good job done so far (see pic) with the Hunter now in full ‘rat look.’ Pam then swung by and mentioned that lots of punters had taken photos of the Hunter during the very busy East Coast Pirates Sunday, having assumed that the ‘rat look’ was the normal look. Au contraire mes amis, this is very much a temporary state of affairs. The next version will be the ‘all grey’ look once the primer is on.

After luncheon, the Skipper (Cliff) led the Hunter ‘hose down’ (see pic) prior to, weather permitting, priming next week. In between a certain amount of splashback, our good friends The Chippies rocked up to ‘solutionise’ filling the little ‘hole’ in the port wing, where the Pitot Tube used to reside. After some (predictable) teeth-sucking and head-scratching, the ever-resourceful Michael and Ash disappeared off to the Woodwork Shop and soon reappeared brandishing a couple of pieces of timber. These were then fashioned into a wooden ‘plug’ on site. By the close of play the port wing was sorted, save for a little bit of sander finessing next week, thanks guys!

During the post-match cuppa, the boys decided that it was probably a good idea to check that we had the relevant paint in stock for the Hunter, prior to breaking out the rollers next week. Requirements were hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper and passed over to our Paint Procurer (aka Gwen). Speaking of whom, while all this Hunter puntering was going on, our senior partner was continuing with the titivation of the Mystere. By lunchtime, Gwen had repainted the top of the starboard wing in High-Speed Silver. Having painted the ‘yellow bits’ last week, Gwen then moved on to the ‘black bits’ and by close of play the central fuselage stripes were also complete (see pic). That just leaves the fin flash to do on the starboard side, followed by all the similar markings on the port side.

In other news, some time back the team were approached by the guys refurbing the Memorial ‘mosaic’ down by the 446^th with a request to repaint the flagpoles and propeller. After a quick ‘reccy’ the team concluded that painting the flagpoles upright ‘in situ’ would be a tad tricky, so Barry and John S. dropped in for a further look, to see if the poles could be extracted and by what means. Having knocked heads together, they concluded that it might be possible to get them out (to paint horizontally in the Metal Workshop) by drilling a hole near the base of the poles, inserting a steel bar and then lifting the bar using hydraulic jacks. Tune back in next week folks to see whether they manage to pull this stunt off!

Barry

(Photos) Painters 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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