NASAM Update as of the 11th Feb 2025
In This Edition
Summary of Contents
In this edition of the blog “Museum News” we have a review of 2024 from the Museum Chair, Steve. Also, an additional photo of Skeeter XL739, which arrived at the Museum in January.
From the Teams “Inside and Outside – The Museum“, we have updates from Graham in Archives, Barry in the Paint Team and Malcolm in the Model Maintenance Unit.
Finally, in the “Events Information“, we have details on the opening date for the Museum, which is just a week away now, as well as a list of those event days at the Museum that are open to the public in 2025.
Pete S
Museum News
General news from the Museum
2024 Review
Another year has passed, I must be getting old as they seem to go so fast. Many of you will have read Graham’s review of each quarter already so I will try not to repeat that here except to put it into context.
The year saw very similar numbers of visitors to the museum that we received the previous year, around 21.5k. The busiest days saw almost 500 people, the quieter ones around 35. As ever the weather played a big part, if it’s too wet no-one wants to go out, if it’s too hot people go to the beach instead. That said there must have been a lot of “suitable” days.
The museum took on few new exhibits during the year, instead we concentrated on redeveloping displays that have been in place for a large number of years. We have tried to tell stories and have been using our exhibits to bring them to life. In particular the ROC building has had a major refresh. Room 3 is an ongoing saga and the collapse of it’s ceiling certainly didn’t help progress there. Good progress has been made on models in several guises, in particular the World War I model display has been completely restored and refreshed.
The biggest change that we have seen during the year is around volunteers. We have seen a significant increase in the numbers, both front of house, and behind the scenes. On front of house we regularly have ten volunteers to welcome visitors and add to the experience whilst visiting. Behind the scenes the projects mentioned above would not have been possible without bolstered numbers.
Sadly the year has, as ever, seen the departure of old friends. Our thoughts are with their families.
The decision was taken during the year to implement charging this coming season. The charges can be found on our website ( 2025 Charging ). The museum has looked at charging several times over the last five years but it was felt that we could not delay implementation further.
We have exciting new projects on the horizon. Hopefully we can get Room 3 refurbished and open to the public for our new season on February 19th. The Air Sea Rescue building is undergoing refurbishment and the displays are being refreshed and updated. We are also working to bring the displays there more up to date by acquiring more recent exhibits.
We have a new helicopter exhibit which came in on loan to the museum, and are working on enhancing our trainer exhibit with a new airframe.
All in all a very successful year for the museum, we hope that we will be able to report similar success in a year’s time.
Steve B
Arrival of Skeeter XL739 (Update)
As Steve mentioned above, we were privileged to take charge of a Saunders Roe Skeeter AOP12 helicopter, registration XL739, which was loaned to us from the Norfolk Tank Museum. The arrival was reported in a recent Blog ( Arrival of XL739 ) . Unfortunately, I was unable to include all the photos of the helicopter as I was waiting on copyright permission from the photographer (Joop de Groot) of a particular shot that I wanted to include when the aircraft was a gate guardian at Wattisham Airfield. This permission has now been received and added to the arrival blog, so here is one more picture of the helicopter as we hope to see it after restoration by our Engineering and Paint Teams.
Pete S
(Photo) Skeeter XL739
Pete S
Inside and Outside – The Museum
Information from the various teams
Archives Update
Arrival of the Brockhouse Corgi Mini Motorbike
As well as the arrival of the Skeeter XL739, reported elsewhere in the Blogs, a second arrival on the same day as the Skeeter was a little Brockhouse Corgi Mini Motorbike which was restored by a regular visitor to the museum who lived in Essex. He died a year or so ago but wanted his bike to sit alongside the one we already have in the Ken Wallis Hall. 25 family members turned up with the bike, we had a handover outside, a brief tour inside to see where the little beastie will live now – and then Gary fixed up lunch at the Dove for them all. They went away happy and completely frozen. We now have a cute pair of the bikes. Despite the colouring, it’s a civilian version of the paratroopers Welbike.
Graham
(Photos) Brockhouse Corgi Mini Motorbike
Paint Team Update
21/01/25 – Room 101… er, Room 3… maybe er, Room 303!
Yes folks, as per H G Wells’ book 1984, our worst fears were realised in Room 3..03 this week. With the outside temperature nudging a heady 1.5 degrees the reception in Room 3 was decidedly ‘frosty’ to say the least upon arrival. Notwithstanding the tedium ahead, the boys knuckled down and got on with applying the topcoat of Matt White emulsion.
The ‘draft dodgers’ among us looked hastily for alternative employment. Barry and Cliff ‘warmed up’ by erecting some scaff’ over the Fairchild up in the BP Hangar so that the Fire Safety contractors could access the fire detector mounted on the underside of the roof (see pic).
Sensibly, Gwen headed for the heated Restoration Workshop where she could repaint some of the Anderson shelter for Ian and the Navy Larks working next to Room 3.
With the imminent arrival the Skeeter, last week Barry was turfed out of the main Resto Workshop into the annexe where the BC Mozzie model was awaiting some paint. Fortunately, the rattle cans were delivered yesterday, so Barry was able to ‘flip’ the Mozzie today and paint the underside in Medium Sea Grey (see pic).
In the arvo, Barry joined Mark, Ian and Cliff in Room 3 (see pic) and by close of play the whole ceiling had received a topcoat of emulsion. Job done, save for a little bit of cleaning of exhibits/cabinets next week.
The afternoon’s activity was punctuated by the arrival of the Skeeter helicopter. Trip one saw the arrival of the cockpit/engine, plus a box of bits (see pic). Later on, the back end of the Skeeter arrived (see pic). Next week the Paint Team will be involved in cleaning up the Skeeter (i.e. pressure washing it) prior to restoration by John and Roger.
Paint Team Update 28/01/25 – From Mosquiter to Wash Skeeter!
It was largely a two-pronged attack this week. Barry started off the day by masking up the Mosquito ready for some paint on the upper surfaces (see pic).
Meanwhile, Mark and Ian toddled off to tidy up Room 3 following the conclusion of the ceiling repaint last week, only to find that the ‘Leccies had already moved in and had started to wire the strip lights back into the ceiling (see pic).
Elsewhere, Gwen gave the Anderson Shelter roof a coat of paint and the Skipper (Cliff) went off to play Mrs Mop in Bomber Command.
Later in the morning, Mark and Ian helped manhandle the Skeeter fuselage and tail boom outside so that they could then pressure wash them for John and Roger. Notwithstanding a lack of water pressure at the end of a very long hose, Mark and Ian persevered (see pic) and both the fuselage and tail boom came up lovely.
After a morning of masking up, Barry finally broke out some paint and gave the upper surfaces of the Mozzie a coat of FS Ocean Grey (ok, Dark Admiralty Grey the virtually identical BS equivalent colour). All was going well until he ran out of paint on the starboard wing (see pic). To be continue next week.
In the arvo, Barry joined Mark and Ian for some more Skeeter action. It seemed like a good day for pressure washing as there had been numerous ‘rinsing’ showers during the morning! The rotor blades were duly taken outside and given a light scrub and a hosing down (see pic).
Afterwards, all the bits of the Skeeter were shunted back into the Restoration Workshop where several puddles of water started to form on the workshop floor as the Skeeter gave up the last remnants of the pressure washing/rain showers. I’m sure it’ll have dried out by next week!
Barry
(Photos) Paint Team Update
MMU Update
This update covers the refurbishment of the 1/72nd scale Consolidated B-24 Liberator GR.VI which was collected from ASR on Tuesday 7th January for delivery back before the museum reopens this month, actually being returned on 4th February.
The team were eager to retain the B-24 as part of a display which features 220 Squadron RAF. As it was, the model had seen better days and needed a complete overhaul before it was deemed to be display worthy.
The first part was to assess what needed to be done. In all fairness the structure of the model was in reasonably good condition although several parts were missing. The main objective was to give it a complete new coat of paint. However before doing so some new decals were required, luckily ‘Xtradecal’ has a set of decals in its range under the title of ‘Yanks with Roundels’ and one set features a B-24 in the markings of 220 Sqn RAF Coastal Command from April 1945 when it operated from the Azores.
With decals in hand , the model was given a sanding to smooth out the rough edges and a coat of Humbrol undercoat grey was applied to the whole aircraft. One or two areas needed a bit of filler where gaps were present where they should not have been.
Once primed , various areas such as the cockpit canopy and other ‘glazed’ parts were masked off and then 4 coats of Matt White were applied. Once I was happy with the white, extra masking was applied so that the two tone grey upper camouflage could be applied.
After the main painting was complete ,the undercarriage was repainted. I decided that the original propellers needed attention, however I found a complete set of props in my spares which were in far greater condition and therefore took the originals off and replaced them. The spares box also provided new guns for the three turrets plus in the process of adding these I decided to replace the glass parts as well. The cockpit canopy was retained as although the framework was not quite the correct colour, it was in good condition.
Next stage was to give the whole model a coat of Klear varnish, the decals were applied and finally a coat of Matt varnish.
The end result is not a perfect model but that is difficult to achieve when you are not starting from scratch. It is however, in my opinion, in better display condition.
Malcolm
(Photos) MMU update
Event Information
What next at the Museum
Opening Date @ NASAM
The Museum will reopen after our winter maintenance period on Wednesday, the 19th of February 2025. We will return to our usual hours from 1000 through to 1600, and the normal opening days will be the same as in 2024 on Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays and all Bank Holiday Mondays.
More information can be found on our events page, where Graham explains things in more detail. To go to the events page, click on the “Welcome Back” below:
Events for 2025
In addition to the reopening on Wednesday, the 19th of February 2025, Gary, the museum manager, is already planning various events, and we have a list of dates that you may wish to put in your diaries. The list of dates and events when we are open to the public are shown in the table below. The planning calendar now looks like this:
Note, that we are open one additional day in the week for the 80th Anniversary of VE Day, which will happen on a Thursday, the 8th of May 2025.
Pete S
The Repeat Info
Here we are, the start of a new year, and despite the fact that we will now raise some monies through our admission charges, 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 some grants and 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“.
Are you thinking of helping ??
We save money by having a dedicated group of volunteers that keep the museum and the exhibits both manned and maintained. We hope therefore a few people may consider helping in the ways below.
There are three easy ways to help: Help by becoming a Museum Member, also by Volunteering to help at the museum, or by Donating to assist in our running costs. Please click on the appropriate button below to access the appropriate information:
Click to see how to becomeMUSEUM MEMBER Click to see how to becomeMUSEUM VOLUNTEER 
Click to make aDONATION
Keep Up To Date
To keep up to date with further information, please keep an eye on our Social Media (see the Social Media buttons at the foot of this blog) or click on the button below to be notified by email of any upcoming changes by seeing the latest blog.
Go to the form forEMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Pete S
