Brooklands

[John]

I must have been to Brooklands 25-30 times? But oddly I've never done the Concorde tour. Well yesterday I did and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, it was IMHO pitched just right, a fine balance of appealing to the died in the wool geek like me and the grans and mums. What the team at Brooklands have done with what was basically scrap is nothing short of remarkable! Long may it continue. Now if the same money could be spent putting the VC10 back into top nick (and I don't mean the test specimen or G-ARVM) how good would that be!

Kind regards

John

[DaveB]

Hi John Glad you enjoyed your tour of DG ;-) The team over there have done quite a remarkable job turning round what was an empty shell into something the museum can be rightly proud of She'll be turning around soon.. well, that is when the baby Concorde paint job is finished. Ironic that the real one has to move out of the way for the model to get past It's a good opportunity to have her nose into the wind

A4O-AB.. in fact ALL the aircraft are in need of a repaint and money is currently being sought to see this is done. Many ideas have been thrown into the pot.. the latest favourite being to erect scaffolding and paint them ourselves :o I'm not a big fan of this idea but to get the aircraft 'professionally' painted is a non-starter due to cost. One of the many original plans for the aircraft park was that it would be covered but this, like so many others has fallen by the wayside. :-(

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[John]

A4O-AB.. in fact ALL the aircraft are in need of a repaint and money is currently being sought to see this is done. Many ideas have been thrown into the pot.. the latest favourite being to erect scaffolding and paint them ourselves :o I'm not a big fan of this idea but to get the aircraft 'professionally' painted is a non-starter due to cost. One of the many original plans for the aircraft park was that it would be covered but this, like so many others has fallen by the wayside. :-(

DaveB :tab:

Hi Dave

Yeah she could do with coat of paint and the starboard wing is shall we say rather 'green'. If you do decide to do it yourselves and I've got any holiday, I'll gladly give a hand. I do have one question.... why are the flaps off the port wing?

John

[Garry Russell]

Wasn't there a hold on cleaning the wings due to elfin safety?


Garry

[DaveB]

Hi Chaps

Believe it or not, the RH wing was cleaned not many months ago. Her proximity to that treeline is such that she goes green in short order. Nothing can be done about that other than a)moving the aircraft - but to where and b) chopping the trees down. Prior to the last clean.. I'm sure she'd have been invisible to Google Earth! Did you notice the RH side of the fuselage!!!! :o :o :o

Ref her flaps..
When A4O first came to Brooklands, the 'then' team leader thought, in his infinate wisdom, that it'd be a great idea if visitors could pull back on the yoke and turn it left/right so.. a lot of the control systems were disconnected and some were cut. This means that much of the aircraft (most) is both hydraulically and electrically dead. Lamps have been rigged on the FD to give an impression of 'life' but in reality it's not. A consequence of this is that maintenance on certain parts of the aircraft is a nightmare. The only way to move the flaps on A4O for inspection is to literally crank them down by hand.. not an easy job!! :o The intention now is to clean and grease all the running surfaces the flaps move on then replace the flaps. They hit a problem moving them down as much of the gearing hadn't been touched for so long.. they got them so far pretty easily then hit the unlubricated parts that water has spent many years seeping into so.. moving them down turned into moving them down and taking them off. The 'putting back' part is taking much longer! :roll:

As Garry said.. there was and still is an issue with the VC10 due to the shear size of her wings and lack of anchor points. Robin managed to get around this with a cherry picker and Karcher but it didn't move as much muck as they'd have hoped. Once you've stood looking at the VC10 for long enough, it doesn't look particularly big.. especially in this day and age but you get knackered scrubbing with a soft broom and water in short order. Suddenly.. it becomes a lot bigger than it looks EP's wingspan is only 118ft and I was cream crackered after the first wing!

One bonus of having her repainted is that it would remove the old paints 'paved' effect and make her easier to clean. We live in hope ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Chris558]

Well, as a model maker, I wouldn't mind working on a scale of...erm... 1/1 (think that's right!)

I'd love to stick on the masking tape and paint the old BA scheme on the VC10. Then peel the tape off the fin, and hey presto...lovely straight red, white and blue (union fag) stripes!

[DaveB]

Unfortunately, a BA scheme wouldn't be accurate for A4O-AB (though that doesn't stop museums painting aircraft up incorrectly!!). She DID fly with BUA and BCAL as G-ASIX and it'd be mighty nice to see either of those liveries but.. I don't think that would happen. I'm not sure but I think it's a condition of donation that the aircraft is kept in the SOM livery. The boys have toyed with the idea of giving EP a new lease of life as BEA Flying Jack which, would be absolutely splendiferous but they're not sure where we stand. Although Hunting Cargo no longer have their own aircraft, they're still a cargo company and may get a toot on if she were painted different to how she is now. That said.. they may not so it might be worth a try. There are still a LOT of ex BEA/BA pilots out there who'd certainly like to see her in FJ. We could have her FULL FJ.. FJ with BA titles.. FULL BA or even Air Bridge so there's plenty of room to manoeuvre

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

Hi Dave

I would have thought the mould is sticking to the now rough paint...........it is practical to polish it? :think:

At the time of the donation it was said the Sultan couldn't bear to see it go so was donated to remain as is

The Comet at Duxford was also donated provided she remained in DAN livery but of course DAN folded so that one was sorted

Garry

[DaveB]

Hello Mate..

I shy away from polishing the car so an aircraft...

I think the 'teams' see the most obvious solution is to paint (the easiest too) though I can only imagine how they might look in the end due to individuals painting skills or lack of :doho: I'm sure that each week I go, I see a new bit of paint flaked off and another bit of corrosion rearing it's ugly head and to combat this.. paint is really the only option.. even done badly

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[jamesstables]

I visited Brooklands for the first time on tuesday and despite the weather its one of the best museums I have visited in a long time. It seems very well run and a credit to everyone involved.

We are currently giving our Wessex HAS1 a quick coat of paint to stop the corrosion until we get chance to do a proper restoration in 5-10 years time. If you look at the photos here: http://www.aeroventure.org.uk/xs887.php you can see the difference it makes, and that has all been done with a 1" brush! That has gone on over the course of 2-3 months with one guy working a couple of evenings a week.