Duxford: Sale Now On!

[Treble one]

Richard Ashton, the Director at IWM Duxford, use to be involved with the CC.

Regarding aircraft that IWM Duxford were offered in the past, they were certainly offered an F-14 and turned it down in the past. More recently, they were offered a Nimrod R1, but had nowhere to put it.

[Nopax,thanx]

The CASA that is here now, acmech1954, was delivered to Duxford in the 1990's so the one that you saw would have been a leftover from the B of B film in 1968. It's admittedly in a poor condition, having been stored outside in Spain for a long time, and I believe the IWM have surveyed it and declared it to be unsuitable for restoration at the present time due to extensive corrosion.

So, it will no doubt be disposed of as well, again hopefully to a museum who can 'tart it up' (and I do mean that in a serious and sympathetic way) either by making some dummy Daimler-Benz shaped engine cowls from fibreglass and painting it as a Heinkel, or doing it as a CASA with the Merlins. Either way it would be better than what it's undergoing now.

[Proplinerman]

Is this "Heinkel 111" at the superb Heremeskeil museum in Germany a real one, or a Spanish licence built one, does anyone know?

ScanImage32 581 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[Nopax,thanx]

That's a CASA, the intakes are the giveaway...so it's good enough for them to portray it as a Heinkel then

[Hasel Checks]

Regarding aircraft that IWM Duxford were offered in the past, they were certainly offered an F-14 and turned it down in the past. More recently, they were offered a Nimrod R1, but had nowhere to put it.

I wouldn't quarrel with those decisions, but I suspect the previous poster was hinting at juicier fare being spurned. I'm sure we're all very curious to know.

Fast jets and jet airliners are problematic to maintain in an airworthy state, and they don't really have the charisma of propeller-engined aircraft.

I wonder if the IWM is missing a niche where it could market its goodies for use in more films. Even half-baked aircraft like the CASA Heinkels would be useful for static shots and ground runs in films.
CGI is all very well, but even they need a real database to work from.

It could be a lucrative source of funds for them to build another hangar.

[Nopax,thanx]

To be fair, the IWM have filmed ads and stuff at Duxford; the BA advert was done there, and more recently a promo film for Fujitsu (I think) was done, using some RAF ground equipment; but having said that, they are awful at publicity. When they get a new exhibit it's usually the jungle drums on the day that let us know what's going on, and the items are squirreled away without fanfare. Sometimes they have a press day, but it's usually well after the event.

Sadly these days it's the corporate events that are filling the coffers (not that they are filling up very fast), and the original aims of what the museum was about are at risk of being lost. If it is to educate the public, it can do it using whatever historical items it can lay its hands on. Plenty of museums have replicas and lookalikes on display, the message can still be put across. If they continue with current policy then more artefacts look set to depart, and how then do you convince punters to stump up what is quite a steep admission price to look at a reduced collection of exhibits?