NASAM Update as at the 21st May 2025

In This Edition

Summary of Contents

In this edition of the Blogs “Museum News“, we have an article and photos from Graham on the departure of the replica Fokker DVIII. We have a few seconds of the RAF BBMF Hurricane flypast on the 10th May 2025 provided by Jessie and Brian. Also, a photo of a flyover on Sunday, the 18th May 2025, provided by Joe.

From the Teams “Inside and Outside – The Museum“, we have a weekly update from Barry and the Paint Team’s efforts in roundel application.

Finally, in the “Events Information“, we have dates for the next three special event days and, unfortunately, notice of a cancellation by the RAF BBMF of the flypast this coming Saturday, the 24th of May 2025, due to operational reasons.

Pete S

Museum News

General News from or about the Museum

Fokker DVIII Replica Departs Flixton

The 13th of May saw a flurry of activity around one of the two storage units to the rear of the museum site. The museum was saying farewell to one of its long-term residents. The two-thirds (or five-eighths depending on who you speak to) scale Fokker DVIII replica that had been built by one of its Volunteers around 1984 and adopted at Flixton in October of 2000, had been removed from display some years ago, had its wings removed and the whole package then tucked away into storage awaiting the will, and the space, to redisplay it sometime down the line. The display space never materialised and the difficult decision to return it to its builder and owner was taken in order to prevent the damp of several winters from taking further toll on the airframe.

Even as a scaled down replica, the machine featured a working electric motor – which had been salvaged from a council gritting lorry, and a carved wooden propeller which meant that any operation had to be very carefully supervised, and it had been registered with the British Aircraft Preservation Council as BAPC.239. It can still be found on the register of anonymous aircraft under that reg number, despite the BAPC becoming AHUK (Aviation Heritage UK) some years ago.

It had seen good service at NASAM open days and even some local fetes, when suitably clad museum volunteers would explain the characteristics and workings of the machine in bad German accents to anyone who would listen.

So the Museum says thank you to ‘239, and to its creator Barry Lain, and a handful of current volunteers were on hand to muscle it onto a trailer and wave it a fond farewell as it rattled off to a new storage unit somewhere.

Oddly, having freed up an area in the NASAM unit, we unearthed an 8ft tall replica of a SkyNet 4 satellite complete with six dummy solar panels. Maybe time to book another trailer…

Graham

(Photos) Fokker DVIII Replica Departs

Note: Photo 01 shows the aircraft when on display

Flypast on 10th May 2025

Following publication of the last edition of the blog, Brian kindly sent in three videos that his wife, Jessie took of the three passes that the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Hurricane made over the Museum on Saturday, the 10th May 2025. These have been combined and added to our YouTube Channel.

Turn up the Volume.

(Video) Hurricane Flypast 10th May 2025

Piper L-4 Cub Flyover

Sunday, the 18th May 2025, saw the flyover of a Piper L-4 Cub.

(Photo) Piper Cub Flyover

Inside and Outside At The Museum

News from the Various Team

Paint Team Update

Update 13/05/25 – It was all going so well… until the wind got up!

This week, Barry and Ian W. looked to complete the markings on the Sea Prince. With just half a dozen 3-foot roundels left to put on, confidence levels on completing the job today were (initially) high.

To work their way into the job, the boys decided to put down the roundels on the tops of the wings first, on the basis that if their confidence in handling large sheets of very sticky vinyl were misplaced, then few (if any) visitors would see any less than perfect results!

The first lay of the day was the starboard upper roundel, This went rather well, with the obvious assistance of gravity. The ‘blue’ went on dry and then the ‘white’ and ‘red’ were put on wet, to allow for a bit of recentre-ing if required. With a bit of a swagger now in their step, the boys then moved over to the port upper wing and put the corresponding roundel down, no problemo (see pic). So far so good.

The third roundel attempted proved to be somewhat trickier. The starboard lower wing roundel positioning necessitated a ‘cut out’ in both the blue and white sections in order to get it to fit round the protruding pitot tube (see pic). The lack of gravitational assistance also made this a tricky lay. After a bit of ladder acrobatics, it was job done and time for a recuperative cuppa.

In other news this week, Gwen completed her ‘touching in’ of the Whirlwind, which is now looking a lot less shabby (see pic) than it did a few weeks ago.

John from the Buckenham Blast Company also stopped by to discuss having a crack at repainting the Bloodhound missile and ancillaries. Much to my surprise he didn’t say ‘no’ and a quotation should be on its way to us fairly soon.

After luncheon, complete with Italian cheesecake (at least I think that’s what it was) courtesy of the returning Signore Kellerheri (Mark), the pace slowed somewhat as Barry and Ian W. started to run into some headwinds. Trying to very gently push up a sticky 3 foot piece of floppy vinyl onto the underside of a wing, with no gravitational assistance and gusty side wind proved to be very difficult indeed. After a few expletives and various attempts to unstick and reposition the blue roundel, it finally went down, albeit with a few unfortunate creases in it. With a couple of slits made to let the remaining trapped air out, the boys flattened out the blue roundel as best they could (no pics of this one obviously!). Fortunately, some of the blue creases were subsequently covered over by the application of the white and red inner parts of the roundel. Overall, it’s a good ‘ten footer’ as they say.

With time running out, but with the need to re-discover their decaling mojo, the boys decided to have a crack at the starboard fuselage roundel. Applying the vinyl sideways and on the sheltered side of the aircraft proved to be much easier than upside down under the port wing. Phew (see pic)! That just leaves the port fuselage roundel for next week, but that requires another cut out for the datum plate. Best attempted with fresh heads methinks, or maybe we’ll get Mark and Cliff to do that one!

Anyway, that’s the end of this week’s Paint Team activity round(el) up.

Barry

(Photos) Paint Team Update 13/05/25

Event information

What’s next at the Museum

Upcoming Events

A few of the upcoming events at the Museum are shown below in poster form.

Flypast Cancellation

Please note that on Saturday, the 24th May 2025, the RAF BBMF has unfortunately had to cancel the flypast of two aircraft due to operational reasons.

Next Flypast Scheduled

The next flypast is scheduled for Saturday, the 14th June 2025, at the Big Modelling Brick Weekend.

The Repeat Information

Funding

Here we are in 2025, and although we now charge for admission to the Museum, we still appreciate any additional help we can get from the general public, readers of the blog and visitors to the Museum. So the repeated information below is still here, just in case you would like to help.

We are a charitable organisation, relying now on admission charges, grants and donations from the people that visit. Any and all help is greatly appreciated 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”.

Would you like to help??

One of the ways we save money is by having a dedicated group of Volunteers that keep the Museum and the exhibits both manned and maintained. We hope, therefore, that a few people would consider helping in the three ways below:

Help by becoming a Museum Member, also Volunteering to help at the Museum, or by making a Donation to help with 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

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