News on Wroughtons future
 

And it's good

Science Museum plans Swindon storage expansion - BBC News

A typical hangar is 100 yds x 50 yds, similar to a football pitch.

It was a bit surprising therefore that the piece linked to says the new facility will be "the size of two football pitches", when the Science Museum currently has 10 hangars at Wroughton. From 10 to 2. I'd much prefer they considered the hangars part of the museum, but agreed that something is better than nothing.

I wonder what's in the 20% that won't make the cut? Indeed how is the 20% measured? By numbers of artefacts? Or by volume? I suppose if you get rid of a Comet aircraft, you could fit a rather large number of fuel pumps, tires, paperwork and other detritus in the same space, but 8 yr old little Billy/Joshua/Mohammed isn't going to get the same inspiration.

A bit of "bah humbug" here, perhaps; something better than nothing. But why not just repair what's already there? The RAF have to.

Hangars built in the mid 1930's and are slowly falling apart. I visited in the early 90's with an architect friend and he said that they were in an appaling and semi dangerous state then.

Some of the existing hangars also have air conditioning running 24/7 in order to preserve exhibits which must be very expensive. The article says nothing about abandoning the other hangars, so I would think this will be additional storage space with better climactic control in order to reduce costs.
There's a thread on another forum on this subject and one of the posters says that there is a solar farm (like the one covering Lyneham) at Wroughton south of the east - west runway.
The thread now contains some aerial photos includng Lyneham, Wroughton and one or two other airfields which have been blighted in this way.

I've been to Wroughton three times. The first when flying in fully serviceable Wessex IIIs for storage/disposal when we disbanded 737 Squadron at Portland, then in the 90s in a SeaKing to load in up to the gunwales from the RN Public Relations Hangar (co-located with the RN ship model store with some fabulous scale models of warships going back many years) with visitor handouts, gizzits and PR material for a carrier foreign deployment, then much later on a similar visit by car but when (lost) we entered a hangar to ask for directions and there was Stephenson's Rocket nestling in the open on a shipping pallet. Yes... the original Rocket right in front of us available to touch. It was being taken overseas, I think to Japan for a Science Fair. Amazing and enigmatic place on the hill is Wroughton; long may it remain accessible and in the public domain. pp.

This sounds like a great idea for too long this collection of large objects has been largely hidden from public view.

Who knows if you visit the museum you might also get a glimpse of the Grand Tour team torturing cars on the Eboladrome.

Let there be no misunderstanding. My own direct experience with the Science Museum is that they have ZERO. empathy, enthusiasm or experience in matters aviation. The way they have handled our aviation heritage in their care both at Kensington and Wroughton is a complete disgrace. As just one example, their are many others, the massive A330 landing gear which once graced the entry at Kensington, an example of UK excellence in aerospace science and engineering, has been replaced by a collection of old bikes and much of the space it occupied left empty. The landing gear is now hidden away at Wroughton and inaccessible to the public, thanks to the disinterest by their staff.

In my dealings with these people, I have uncovered crass incompetence, clear hostility and an element of dishonesty amongst certain individuals in their management team.

None of these things would I dare to say in a public forum ( and in two meetings with the PM I made these statements to her ) unless I had the documentation to prove my statements. I do, FOI was very useful but the SM stopped responding when I asked some uncomfortable questions.

It's some 25 years since anything changed at the " Flight" section at Kensington. Compare their efforts, or lack of them, with the huge progress made by Alan Winn at Brooklands or,indeed, the massive progress made by so many aviation museums here in the UK and around the world, many of which I have visited, so often by volunteers without the public funding, taxpayers money,handed to the SM by the DCMS who show no interest in its management, despite the considerable documentation which I forwarded to them via the PM, my MP, detailing the deficiencies I had uncovered.

RetiredBA/BY: It wasn't the same when I visited Wroughton in '92. We were shown round by a guy called Ross Sharpe who was ultra keen to open the collection to the public,even to the extent of inviting us (members of the Guild of Air Traffic Controllers) to fly in that day and asking if any of us would like to be a FISO there at weekends.
To say he wasn't enhusiastic would have been a real insult to him and under his 'curatorship' the airfield was opened for several aviation events like the Great Warbirds Display and the PFA Rally.
I don't know why he parted company with the Science Museum but it's never been the same since.
Many years ago, the South Ken Museum's curator was a Dr John Bagley who was at the time a prominent member of the Farnborough Aero Club so I presume that went down hill when he left.

Yes, Ross Sharpe, was a total enthusiast and highly knowledgeable . I believe he is NOW the curator of a museum in the USA.
Not so the present management who are totally and hopelessly out of their depth when it comes to aviation.

I was on the airfield three years ago when a sailplane outlanded. Being a gliding instructor and tow pilot I
Went to offer my assistance. To my utter amazement, the manager, one Matt Moore, had refused permission for an aero tow retrieve, despite perfect facilities and conditions as " it was a hazard to the collection" insisting they derigged, pull a trailer from Dunstable for a road retrieve. Perhaps Moore did not know about the assembly and testing of troop carrying gliders at Wroughton prior to DDay!!! The pilot, an army engineer major, just returned from Iraq on IED disposal was justly apoplectic at this crass decision, by the site manager.

Just one example of how this place is (mis) managed and there is a LOT more like it.

You couldn't, make up some of the nonsense which comes out of the SM .

I visited the science museum at Kensington a few years back. I was so disappointed that the aero exhibits were so disjointed. The new areas on the ends appear to have lots of space dedicated to nothing.
I know Peter Davison quite well through Air Britain and the Airship Heritage Trust. He is still very bitter over how he was made redundant as the curator of Aero at Kensington. I understand he does or did a bit of freelance work for Beetham Collection.
I have only visited Wroughton once back in 1983. Was undertaking a bit of design work on the Allouette 2 (new radio) the hangar we were working in had lots of cocooned helicopters of all varieties along with the Argentine spoils of war, Chinook and the 109s I worked on a while after that.

The nurses from the hospital did occasionally get bussed over to the mess at Brize. Unfortunately the ones I was left with reminded me of the difference between a WAAF and a walrus.

[QUOTE The nurses from the hospital did occasionally get bussed over to the mess at Brize. Unfortunately the ones I was left with reminded me of the difference between a WAAF and a walrus.[/QUOTE]

That’s a bit unkind !
I remember driving there from Abingdon on several occasions to a Nurses’ Party there and found several of them ....erm.. very accommodating !

A Walrus? You mean that they have a Supermarine seagull V at Wroughton?

Yes very unkind. I was invited to several 'do's' in the Nursing Officer's Mess at Wroughton and always found they were lovely girls.
They would sometimes invite Army officers from Shrivenham College and I remember hearing one say to his mates ' 'ere Steve, this crab wants to know if we're pongos'.
I went to the toilet at that point.

I only found out Ross had left Wroughton when I saw him working for SBAC at Farnborough in either '94 or '96 but I didn't get chance to talk to him.
Maybe he left because he wanted to (horror of horrors) spend money on developing the site which I presume the SM hierarchy considered as just a store for the museum in London not to be seen by the public.

13 Sep 1967 WD 935 Canberra B2 - Delivery to Wroughton .50 mins. 6th Canberra built, was still painted black and grey, 2500lbs heavier than standard due to trials fits.

Made it from the hospital to the NAAFI for a beer, that went down like a lead balloon when my fellow escapee and I were spotted by a nurse off the ward.

I can never understand how they get away without opening Wroughton to the public..............

From what I gather they just quote elf'n'safety 'cos they just can't be bothered to open it at the moment, but when the new buildings are full, who knows?.

I would venture to suggest that Wroughton was all part of the "out station" push by certain London based national museums in the 70's, Margaret Weston being a big driver for this in the Science Museum. Some had misgivings for the placement of Concorde 002 in the FAAM at Yeovilton for this very reason, seeing it as a possible trojan horse for Science Museum expansionism.
My experience at the time indicated to me that Museum politics and motivation often went a lot further than the popular perception of being for the safeguarding and presentation of artefacts.

Museums are always controversial places - although I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the paucity of a lot of the Science Museum's treatment of aviation exhibits over many years, and Wroughton in particular. The 70s-90s move out of London has created some real gems - even if Wroughton isn't one of them. The Royal Armouries in Leeds I'd label one of the world's truly great museums.

G