10 - The BAC Volunteers | gibbsfamilyhistory

HOW VOLUNTEERS MADE AEROSPACE BRISTOL A REALITY

The Aerospace Bristol museum is a testament to the unsung army of Bristol Aero Collection volunteers, who laboured for nearly three decades with little or no public acknowledgement to keep this historic project alive.

In July, 2017, when the museum’s patron, Princess Anne, presented them with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, she pointed out that they had contributed more than £1 million-worth of their time, hard work and expertise.

Bristol Aero Collection trustee Oliver Dearden, who with volunteer Ken Ricketts received the award from Princess Anne, writes:

Our story began in late 1990 when a public meeting was held at the Bristol Aerospace Welfare Association centre in Southmead Road at which Sir Bob Wall appealed for volunteers to help make the collection a reality – and he was not disappointed.

By the end of the year the volunteers’ Team had 180 members and a committee was formed with Ted Johnson as chair.

During 1991 Team members ran display stands at local Air Days and other events and a Bristol Bloodhound missile was acquired from the RAF with the help of donations from former staff members and the Team.

Offers of engines and a full size model of the Giotto satellite followed together with the dismantled Bristol Britannia G- ANCF.

The Bloodhound arrived in December and was stored by the Department of Aeronautics at Bristol University with the launcher finding a temporary home at RAF Quedgeley in Gloucestershire.

By April 1992 the charitable company had been formally established and registered with a board of eight directors.

A major constraint to continued progress was the lack of a secure site to house the beginnings of the Collection.

In the autumn of 1992 Meggitt Aerospace generously offered a temporary home for the collection in part of their premises at Banwell near Weston-super-Mare – built as a shadow factory for the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1941, where aircraft assembly started with the Bristol Beaufort.

The Bloodhound missile was moved to Banwell in December 1992 and was followed by Britannia G-ANCF, a Bristol Sycamore helicopter, a Bristol Scout, and other smaller items.

The membership had by then grown to 250 and active Team members spent a considerable time restoring and maintaining the items in store - due to the secure nature of Meggit’s operations on site, the public could not be admitted although a “members and families” day was allowed.

The profile of the Collection was raised substantially in August, 1994, when, with the co-operation of BAe and British Airways, a dinner for 400 people was held at Filton to celebrate 25 years of Concorde.

The aircraft with 100 passengers on board flew in to Filton at 6.30pm on a Friday evening, with live television coverage.

The Bristol Blenheim flew in from Duxford and some 30 members of the Bristol Car Owners Club attended with their vehicles, which were parked adjacent to the taxiway to the Brabazon Hangar, where Concorde and the Blenheim were displayed outside Centre 19, the venue for the dinner.

Several items were brought up from Banwell to create an exhibition alongside the dinner - a splendid occasion, which raised a considerable amount of interest and money for the Collection.

The following day Concorde made two supersonic charter flights from Filton over the Bay of Biscay before returning to Heathrow with another 100 passengers on board.

But the Team had to find a new home when Meggitt announced the site was to be closed and sold and with no immediate possibility of anywhere at Filton, a wide search was undertaken.

Eventually they chose RAF Kemble, near Cirencester, where service operations had ceased and the MoD were leasing a number of large hangars on the airfield.

After much deliberation a 10-year lease on a 45,000 sq ft hangar was negotiated from the MoD backed up by the expectation to lease a substantial area to Airbus, which would be shortly looking for a home to store their growing collection of wing test specimens.

The move to Kemble, organised by the Team members, took place in 1996 although the MoD would not initially permit public visits.

Kemble was some 35 miles from Bristol and, although a number of local members joined the Team, a large number travelled from Bristol every Monday to continue the maintenance and restoration of the growing number of items and archive.

The airfield was soon sold to a private buyer and for the first time the Collection could be opened to the public. Due to the distance involved opening was limited to Sundays, Mondays and Airfield show days.

The entire operation was run by Team members with the support of the Board, providing the sole source of income, and this was recognised when the Team members were admitted as members of the charitable company and the Team disbanded.

Visitor numbers were steady in the summer months, but reduced somewhat in winter as the hangar was unheated – the hardy members continuing their work in sometimes extreme conditions – there was a heated crew room, office, shop and archive.

Efforts to secure a site at Filton continued and hopes were raised when the north side of the airfield was sold for development. A site was provisionally identified but eventually proved to be unavailable.

With the retirement of Concorde from service in 2003 and the arrival at Filton of Concorde G-BOAF, members became involved to manage and operate public visits to the Concorde at Filton Visitor Centre in accordance with the terms of an agreement with Airbus.

This continued until the Centre was closed for major maintenance of G-BOAF in 2010.

Meanwhile in 2006 the lease of A1 hangar at Kemble was coming to an end and the owners indicated they were not prepared to offer a new lease. Airbus decided to remain at Kemble and negotiated a lease on another hangar E2 about a quarter of a mile away.

They kindly let BAC have the free use of about a third of the floor area until such time as they would require the space for further test specimens.

The members once again moved the whole collection into this hangar and re-established all the displays. Unfortunately there was not sufficient space for the Britannia and as no outside storage was allowed the aircraft had to be moved off site and has subsequently been reassembled in the open air at Speke, Liverpool.

In 2012 Airbus indicated they would soon require the part of the hangar BAC occupied for some more wing test specimens (the large A380) and BAC would have to move elsewhere.

Kemble was closed to the public in May 2012 and members once again started packing and sorting ready to move by the end of the year.

Fate lent a hand at this juncture when BAC Systems announced the closure of Filton Airfield and the provision of a nine-acre site for a museum based on the old RAF hangars on the north side of the runway.

The Collection was moved to the 3-bay hangar destined to become the home of the heritage collection and after a few months was transferred across the airfield to the East bay of the Brabazon Hangar to enable building restoration and conversion works to be undertaken by contractors.

Some 40 or 50 members continued to maintain and prepare a large number of items for display in the new museum.

The larger items have now been moved into the museum building and on the completion of the necessary building works ,he members will be involved in the final assembly and preparation for display of a collection they have painstakingly assembled and looked after over the past 25-plus years.

The Collection has had the unique benefit of the support of dozens of former Filton employees, many of whom were apprentices, who between them had the unparalleled skills and experience essential in restoring many of the items for display.

Sadly quite a number will not be around to see the final result of their efforts.

When complete the museum will be a lasting testimony to the support and dedication of all members past and present without whom it would not have been possible.

The new Aerospace Bristol museum is a testament to the unsung army of Bristol Aero Collection volunteers, who have laboured for nearly three decades with little or no public acknowledgement to keep this historic project alive.

This July when the museum’s patron, Princess Anne, presented them with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, she pointed out that they had contributed