Cash boost for helicopter museum

[Heliport]

Story from BBC NEWS:
Cash boost for helicopter museum
Weston-super-Mare's helicopter museum is to receive £400,000 of lottery and sponsorship cash to enhance facilities. The money will be used for a new restoration and conservation facility, a new archive and library block, a film theatre and more interactive displays.
Additionally the museum has teamed up with the City of Bristol College to allow trainee helicopter engineers the chance to work on real engines.
The first students should be arriving to start work within six months.
100th anniversary
It is hoped the scheme will help to meet a skills shortage in the aviation industry and also benefit the museum's own volunteer workforce and work experience students.
The new education, skills training and conservation facilities were paid for out of a £290,500 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
Chair of the helicopter museum Captain Elfan ap Rees, said: "2007 marks the 100th anniversary of the first ever flight by the helicopter and so we are especially pleased that the HLF has supported this project, which marks a long-planned third phase expansion of the museum."
He added that the grant would help open up facilities more to schools and colleges in the region.

[Graviman]

That is genuinely fantastic news!

I pop in everytime i am passin' thru and can say it ranks right up there with Sci Museum (London) and Deutches Museum (Munich). Helicopters are one of the fastest developing areas in aerospace, and to have a facility like that which links the history of the technology with future development possibilities is magic. Every time i go i see new details in machines that i just hadn't spotted before.

Mart

[moosp]

Very good news. My latest visit there showed massive enthusiasm and ability from the staff, but terrible under funding.

I fear that 400,000 will not go far, but in a strange way will show local, and perhaps national, benefactors that the project is worth supporting.

As was explained to me some time ago about a multi aircraft restoration project in Australia, "No one puts money in until they see what is going on. So just start, and when you have a going concern, go hunting for the money."

ps. Loved sitting in the Hind cockpit. Brute force and ugly, but it did the job, and war is not meant to be pretty.

[bell222]

never been but this is good news

[NickLappos]

The museum is a really great one, the product of a real love for rotary wing machines, and a lot of work by Elfan ap Rees and his friends. It is at once like a small shop full of mysteries, and a large hangar full of historic machines.

I passed by it once while driving the countryside, and spent the next 4 hours simply in awe.

Thank you, Captain Elfan ap Rees and congratulations on the cash grant. It is well spent, I know!

[Trying Hard]

And don't forget you can do your bit for the Helicopter Museum by simply flying into Helidays this year! All helicopter types are welcome Thursday 26th, Friday 27th, Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th July to this volunteer-run event, and this year if you arrive on Thursday morning you can watch the flying display including the Red Arrows and Black Cats.

ALL money raised from the event goes to Charity, with the major beneficiary being the Museum ... nobody profits personally from the event - everyone does it because of an inexplicable love for helicopters ...

(There may even be a shuttle-bus running for trips to the Museum)