NASAM Round Up 2024 Q2
Q2 Introduction
With the museum now fully open to the public for its customary three days per week, the newly repainted and renovated ROC building open for business and a tasty selection of special event days already booked for the summer months we start the second half of the first half of 2024 in good shape. All we need now is for the weather to get its act together and for visitors to flock to the Museum in unprecedented numbers and make huge donations. Ho hum.
That Was The Year That Was – April to June 2024 at NASAM
Spring time is a good time to clean stuff – most notably the outdoor aircraft, which have all worn their winter plumage of deep green algae and related biology for several months now. Removing the greenery without disturbing the underlying paintwork is a tricky task and, when multiplied by the number of outside exhibits involved, can be very time consuming. Don’t be fooled by the chance to play with a pressure washer – this is a Big Job.
The Mig, the Pucara, the Phantom and the Trojan got the treatment before April had been properly broken in, with the Phantom, a deceptively large aircraft, taking a couple of weeks to become biology-free. The Mystere, the Sea Vixen and significant parts of the Valetta followed soon after, with scaffolding being needed to get to bits of airfield radar, T33 and Bloodhound physiology. The painters also started a massive project that was last for most of the summer – a one-very-determined-woman drive to paint every building on site in respectable military green. Kudos Gwen.
Meanwhile the Chippies had finished the new Luftwaffe Weg extension cabinet, a selection of cabinets and wall repairs in the ROC, alterations and dummy walls in Room 2 and had retired to the Workshop to tackle the mounting collection of maintenance and repair tasks to picnic tables, push-along Spitfires & Red Arrows and, most importantly, the bouncy serving side floor in the NAAFI. They also fitted out their shiny new storage container with racking to hold the various quantities of wood they will Make Stuff with later in the year.
At the same time, the Modellers had completed the WWI biplanes for their new homes and had turned their attention to the building of a Valetta model to mimic the full size version outside and the rescue of a good looking Blue Nosed Bastard from Bodney – a 1/32nd scale P-51D from the 1960’s that was a little tired but far too good to throw away. 370 surplus models were encouraged to find a new home, clearing space in the model store and bolstering the Museums coffers at the same time.
Early special events days included the Norfolk Mini Owners club, the Norfolk Internal Combustion Engine society, the Battlefields Trust Group and large numbers of green-glad youth from three local scout groups. The East Anglian Air Ambulance benefitted from the Easter Egg Hunt fund-raiser on Easter Sunday to recognise the work they do across the Eastern Counties and Mazdas from Northamptonshire, Scent Dogs from Norfolk and Harley Davidson Owners from pretty much everywhere had visited, been photographed and promised to come back next year. Excellent!
(Photos) April at the Museum
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As April became May, the amount of resident algae continued to decrease with the Fokker F27, the Meteor, the F100, the Jet Provost, the upper reaches of the Whirlwind (which is really high) and the two Canberra nose sections emerging from the grime. Hosing the Sea Prince quickly became indistinguishable from paint stripping the Sea Prince, with more dayglo rescue orange becoming evident on each pass. The Javelin caused similar concerns and the two became strong candidates for New Paint a little later in the year. The Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in big time in early May – removing the grime on the Sea Prince had removed a lot of paint which, after close inspection, also revealed that the fuselage ‘roof’ was in a poor state where previous repairs had begun to fail. Roping in the metal magicians to sort the roof, the painters got on with sanding down the upper surfaces of the Sea Prince. It sounds so straightforward when it’s written like that – just go and sand down an aeroplane but weather, availability and the sheer number of sanding discs needed make this kind of activity a Really Big Job and a significant commitment for the Museum – and particularly for the Painters.
Early May also saw special event days that included the museums 40’s themed day when period vehicles, uniforms, music and dancers were joined by more Harley Davidson visitors and a BMW Sports car owners club. The following weekend included an impressive array of classic cars and a flypast from BBMF Hurricane LF363, a machine with a powerful connection to the Museum as significant parts of its original incarnation have been stored with us since the turn of the century after a crash and a fire caused it significant damage and necessitated an eight year rebuild. The original wing panels are here, albeit a little crumpled – but visitors to the workshop will see an ever growing example of a Hurricane skeleton – which includes LF363’s 9ft long original front wing spar web plate. No Hurricane parts were painted by the Guild of Aviation Artists, who joined us a week after the flypast to much visitor interest, nor by our own paint team who continued stripping work on the Sea Prince fuselage – and the one-woman marathon to paint every building green. Go Gwen.
Batch 4 of the model surplus left us for pastures new around this time, although there is likely to be a Batch 5 in the offing given the number of models that the museum has retained so far. Again, the disposals all add to the museums bottom line and free valuable storage space for new work. Work on the model Valetta from a Czechoslovakian kit is progressing as a collection of small pieces before an imminent coming together of the parts to look like an aeroplane, while D-Day markings are getting on to the rescued P-51.
(Photos) May at the Museum
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Away from the museum site, the Ground Force team had been tidying up the grounds around the memorial to the 446th Bomb Group located on the old airfield at Flixton prior to the D-Day commemoration in early June. The memorial honours all American airmen who gave their lives flying from the East Anglia airbases through the war years and notes that the 446th Bomb Group led the 8th Air Force on the first mission on D-Day. Honour indeed.
In early June, the Museum also played host to the South Norfolk and Waveney Conservative Federation, the Panther Motorcycle Club with youthful members bringing a range of very distinguished machinery from as far back as the 1930’s, and a wonderful selection of Mini’s from the Bury St Edmunds Mini Club to mix into our aviation background.
Manky weather slowed the grinding, sanding and preparation of the fuselage and tail surfaces of the Sea Prince in the early half of the month, but this only served to push along paint jobs on the Chipmunk wing stubs, the Scout car and various oxygen bottle collections in the drier, and warmer, indoor areas. Work even had to stop on the porta-cabin paintathon for a week or two but – by the third week of the month, the weather had picked up enough to the allow the drone of sanders and grinders to again announce that the Sea Prince wasn’t finished yet, a situation that was to continue into the third quarter of the year…
Graham
(Photos) June at the Museum
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Opening Days in December 2024
A reminder that we are still open on the following days in December and still free to enter and free to park on these two days.
- We will be open on Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th of December from 1000 thru to 1500.
- Please note that not all areas may be open during these days.
2025 Admission Charges
2025 will see the museum charging admission in order to ensure we have the finances available to continue to display the various aircraft and artefacts linked to both aviation and East Anglia. We take pride in maintaining this view of the heritage that we have been entrusted with. For details of the charging in 2025, click on the button below.
Click to see theMUSEUM CHARGES
Pete S
Would You Like To Help in 2025
There are a number of ways you can help the museum if you wish to do so, especially for a volunteer-run charity organisation such as the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum. You could become a Museum Member and if you wish a Volunteer Member by paying a small fee each year, or you could make a one-off donation to help with our running costs.
To become a Museum Member or a Volunteer Member, please click on the appropriate button below to see the details on our main website.
Click to see how to becomeMUSEUM MEMBER Click to see how to becomeMUSEUM VOLUNTEER
To make a donation, please click the donate button below to be taken to our donations page.
For all other details on the museum, please go to our main web page by clicking on the picture below.
Glad to see the ‘Entry Fee / Donation will be in full spring. On my frequent trips Ely/ Lowestoft my children always demanded a stop at the museum, must have had some effect / result ( now 54 & 50 ) the elder after 16 years as a RAF / German Airforce Rotary wing Pilot, transferred to a ‘Small, Fixed Wing ‘ aircraft with 99 Squadron, the C17. well done NASM. What is the history of the Sea Prince, My last contact was Bourne Airfield RAF Mildenhall Airshow, rolling into the fuselage a ‘Donated’ 40 gallon of oil.