For the purposes of the thread, I'm running a biggish research aeroplane in a mixed civil hangar "somewhere in England".
We've been approached by a local school (under 11s I think, but not quite sure) who'd love to know what we do. Great, glad to free somebody up for a few hours to do a bit of local
PR, and maybe persuade a few kids to think about aviation careers.
However, they also asked about a hangar visit. At this suggestion, it would be fair to say that our H&S adviser had kittens. He has a fair point, lots of fragile shiny stuff, lots of small hands unlikely to stay in pockets, legal liability issues on air-stairs, you name it, there's probably a health and safety or legal implication.
But, I'd still love to be able to do it if we can - schoolchildren should be able to go and see something as exciting as a big aeroplane doing "real stuff" and see people at work.
Has anybody based in the UK (on the grounds that the laws are the same) been up against this and either been forced to say no, or found a sensible workaround?
G