Hello,
Phil here(philo on this forum as well as someone else is apparently called Phil here as well !) , some of you will know me from other forums.
I have already updated the Flypast forum, lucky to catch it up and working really, anyhow I have had a long chat with Ian Dewar at YAM and he is fairly positive about the situation with XB259.
The key points are:-
Ownership of the aircraft needs to be established as there are three claimants, although Mr Francis Daley seems to be the legal owner. Receivers see the aircraft as the museums biggest, in fact only asset, yet it looks as if its not theirs anyway. Mr Daley wants to move the aircraft to a site in the Humber estuary, not good as its a fairly saline atmosphere.
YAM are adamant that saving her as a whole is the only option, however she is only structurally sound enough for one more strip down and rebuild, so any move she has now has to be the final one if she is to stay in tact.
Support has been fantastic to date, with some very notable people pledging support, the most notable being a certain R.Branson and HRH the POW.
Cash in the order of 200k will be required to complete the strip, move to and reassembly on a prepared site at Elvington.
It seems likely that XB259 can remain at its current site until probably March 04, and YAM would not want to undertake a strip over the winter anyway.
The bottom line is that this needs as much support as possible,the press coverage has been good locally apparently and I am doing my bit to get the folks of Abingdon wound up, but we all need to write to Ian Dewar at YAM (address on their web site). Please do this if you think our last surviving Beverley should be saved from the baked bean tin factory.
