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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0322.PDF
-LIGHT, 30 January 1959 153 Old Warden Airfield, the museum site suggested by A. Cdre. Wheeler. It lies in pleasant country not far from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire An Aviation Museum —Now or Never? By A. Cdre. A. H. WHEELER, C.B.E. QUITE a time before anyone we know was there to watchit, while the Earth was still cooling down from the hotstate, it started forming a museum. The collection it achieved has been of interest to the more intelligent members ofthe human race ever since they came down from their trees. Some of the exhibits have been surprisingly well preserved;others, probably owing to their environment, have been less fortunate. The fact that the oldest and most interesting of themhave survived till our time is the result, essentially, of two circum- stances. The first concerns the composition of the object inrelation to its surroundings. The second, and perhaps the more important, is related to the vast numbers which were originallyput away. According to the laws of probability, if a few hundred million items are scattered around in.reasonably suitable condi-tions it becomes a near-certainty that a few of diem will survive through the ages. Although we now hope that it may one day be possible to forma national museum devoted exclusively to aviation we may as well learn a lesson from Nature and start off by putting away all the^things which seem worth preserving. They should be provided with reasonably suitabk accommodation. This is the expensivepart of the plan. Securing the actual items should cost little or nothing, for when a thing is obsolescent enough to be consideredfor a museum it is also obsolescent enough commercially to be considered for scrap. Scrap is proverbially inexpensive (exceptwhen you want to buy it) and even in these days it should be possible to delay throwing a few bits of antiquated machinery onto the heap whilst we consider whether they have any historically educational value. The cost of keeping them is solely, as statedabove, the cost of their accommodation. If we delay much longer the formation of an aviation museum,even in embryo, many of the items we would have liked to see in it will have reverted to their original oxidised composition to suchan extent that they will be worth nothing at all; the rest of them will have achieved a form of rebirth through the medium of theblast furnace and rolling mills which, though useful commercially, tends to deprive things of any historical value. Most of us want to see a perfect museum building housing asupremely wise selection of beautifully preserved aeronautical items of very great interest. It is, however, a true saying thatperfection is the enemy of production. If we wait until the perfect museum has been designed—and paid for by someone else—anduntil the final perfect list of items to go in it has been agreed, then we shall never have a museum at all; and never know whatwould have gone in it if we had had one. There is, of course, the magnificently laid out aeronauticalsection of the Science Museum, South Kensington, with a planned extension into a much larger space. This should be adequate tohouse the really epoch-making designs in aviation history up to the present time, although there are still other items which couldwell be included if more space were available. To supplement this a kind of "filter^ museum is needed where items would remainin reserve, some because they are of interest only to the present generation, others because only time wili decide whether theyjustify preservation in perpetuity or whether they are just a delayed category of scrap. Such a supplement to the aviationsection of the Science Museum would go a long way to satisfying the present need for a national museum of aviation. Althoughit is called a "filter museum" here it would be much more than that—in effect, a complete museum of aircraft of very great, butpossibly transitory, interest. A museum's economy differs from that of a commercial enter-prise only in the fact that it must be subsidised to a certain extent if it is to achieve the educational purpose for which it is intended.If it has to pay its way without support from outside it will usually have to appeal more to the sensational than the intellectual inhuman nature—which means that its important educational aim is unlikely to be achieved. But this does not imply that a museum cannot be made interest-ing and attractive by intelligent arrangement and full descriptions A CONSTRUCTIVE plan for an interim approach towards theestablishment of a National Aviation Museum is outlined in this article. The author, who is a trustee of the R. O. Shuttleworth (Aviation) Trust,suggests that Old Warden Aerodrome, home of the Shuttleworth Collection, could become the nucleus of a national aircraft museum atthe comparatively modest cost of only £10,000 of the various items. There is every reason for "making the wheelsgo round" in order to attract the attention and stimulate the imagination of the young. This is particularly important in anaviation museum, where an ancient flying machine standing behind ropes indoors looks a most unpromising engineeringachievement; but moving across a flying field it can be a most inspiring sight. Many such items may be too precious or toodelicate to be flown any more, but a few early types can, on special selected occasions, be displayed to give a useful impres-sion of early flight. This has been the guiding principle of the Shuttleworth Trust Collection ever since it was formed—todisplay to the public a reasonably comprehensive collection (so far as finance permits) of early aeronautical achievements. Up tothe present time the accommodation available has been only sufficient to provide for maintenance and storage—exhibition hasneeded special arrangements—but plans are now being prepared for extending the accommodation sufficiently to allow the wholecollection to be properly displayed for the public to see, particu- larly at weekends during the summer months. An estimate suggests that additional accommodation costingabout £7,000 would allow all the Trust's existing aeroplanes, engines and other items to be permanently on show and allowextra space for another eight or nine fully rigged aeroplanes of the First World War period, or before, plus other engines andequipment. Roughly speaking, accommodation costs about £1 per square foot for the type of museum buildings intended. Thesewould be small hangar-type structures not unlike those used by the early pioneers and by the flying Services in the First WorldWar. They would all face on to the aerodrome, so that the historic aeroplanes would be seen in an environment typical of theearly days. It is possible to get down to this sort of figure for the buildings because the ground they will stand on belongs to themain Trust. The installation of lighting and just sufficient heat- ing to keep the buildings dry would bring the figure slightlyhigher, but considerable economy can be achieved by the very limited heating to be provided. Another £3,000 (making £10,000 in all) would, when invested,provide a small income to pay for the weekend services of an aged but knowledgeable pensioner, who would be needed to superviseand show round visitors. In addition, a small charge for adult visitors which would help to defray general maintenance costs. Other incidental costs can be covered by the existing incomeof the Shuttleworth Trust Collection, which already maintains the aerodrome and workshop facilities required. If any furthermoney became available it would be spent in extending the accommodation, which will inevitably tend to become too smallas time goes on unless a full-scale national museum is provided. There is, therefore, a possibility of an alternative interimscheme which could be complementary to a national scheme when is got going but which would bridge the present difficult periodby housing and displaying a number of the interesting historical aeronautical items that are in existence now but for many ofwhich there is no proper accommodation. If a national museum should eventually be formed, the main-tenance facilities and aerodrome belonging to the Shuttleworth Trust, together with the accommodation there, will be an invalu-able asset: it will provide facilities for preparing new exhibits for show and will always have an aerodrome on which small displayscan be given for educational purposes and for general interest. As in all schemes money is the dominant factor. The Shuttle-worth Collection, by their own efforts and with generous assistance from a number of broadminded subscribers in the aircraft industry,have managed to keep going and indeed to expand slowly during the last decade; but it is a slow process. Any attempt to expand
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