The 'Introduce yourself' Thread

Evening all,

I'm running an exhibition on Lost Airfields of the Cotswolds at the Oxfordshire County Museum in Woodstock until September 1. Thought you chaps would like to know. The details are here:

www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/news/2013/aug...-ww2-airfield-images

There's also more at my blog at mmcmusings.com/2013/01/20/the-past-very-much-present/ I write about motorcycles and watches too, so if an article about those pops up, you'll know why!

I'm certainly not claiming to be either an airfield historian or a photographer of any ability, just someone with an interest in the subject. Most of all, I want people to understand the phenomenal depth and importance of the WWII history around them here in the Cotswolds. Within 20 minutes' ride you can pass down one of the runways from which the D-Day and Arnhem assaults were launched (now a minor road), see the guardhouse of the base where Churchill took off for the Casablanca conference and one of the largest bomb dumps of WWII.

If any of you do go to see the exhibition, I do hope you enjoy it. Any errors will be mine; there's no-one else to blame!

Inside RAF Broadwell tower, the day after Jubilee last year, exactly as I found it:

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MMC, that is a cracking little write up on your blog. I think it's fantastic that you have an exhibition up and running in the museum.

Thanks, Gaz - that's much appreciated. There's plenty more at Woodstock! If anyone's interested, the BBC had me in for an interview about it yesterday: bbc.in/1boZ0dE I start waffling on at 1:06 (you can use the slider to advance the programme). Spot the complete fluff where I couldn't remember the name of RAF Upper Heyford...

Cracking stuff.

If you're interested to know, over at the Jet Age Museum at Cotswold airport we're in the process of building a Horsa Mk.I glider cockpit from scratch from the original Airspeed drawings. I'm acting as technical advisor on the project.

We're building it as a training example that would of been used at the HCGU at RAF Brize Norton in the early part of 1943. It's going to look quite different to the other museum examples out there.

OEB, is anyone going to be at the museum in the next couple of days of an evening

OneEighthBit;130457 wrote:

If you're interested to know, over at the Jet Age Museum at Cotswold airport we're in the process of building a Horsa Mk.I glider cockpit from scratch from the original Airspeed drawings. I'm acting as technical advisor on the project.

That sounds absolutely fascinating. Would love to come over and take a look - would that be possible?!

@Another Number

There is a "soft" opening of the Museum on Saturday August 24th where all are welcome and you can see the aircraft and the new hangar. I don't know about evenings but if you've got a specific enquiry I can put you in touch with someone.

Details of the opening here: www.jetagemuseum.btck.co.uk/

@MMC

As above but the Horsa is currently in our temporary workshop having it's main structure built. When it's a bit more complete and structurally sound it'll be moved to the airport at Staverton and the final construction will take place in situ in the hangar.

Out of interest - it's actually being built in the same HH Martyn building in Cheltenham where in 1944 they were contracted to build 50 Horsa cockpits a month. We have a wartime picture of production and the plan is to do a then-and-now shot eventually.

And yes, I'm gloating a bit, but our cockpit is considerably more "correct" than the one at Shawbury.

We're also doing some tie in stuff related to RAF Stoke Orchard but more on that later

Attached files [IMG]/community/130472=13334-Horsa cockpit frame.jpg[/img]

Welcome to AiX, Trucker54, quite a few ex mob on here;

/community/showthread.php?10200-Are-you-ex-RAF

Thanks cbrjock have visited and added my details.