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Prophetic words indeed........?

Posted by Graham ODriscoll on Mon May 27, 2002 09:13:58 AM

I've recently been trawling through a pile of old Flypast magezines to clear some much needed room.
I noted some interesting wreck/recoverey stories/photos which I'd be interested to know if there was any followup in the subsequent years...I'll post seperately over the coming days.
As a lead I thought it might be interesting to copy out part the editorial from the May 1982 Flypast, written by the late Mike Twite.....20 years on to the month, prophetic words indeed.........!

"A common theme running through readers letters is condemnation of our forbears for their lack of foresight in not saving a representative collection of historic aircraft for posterity. Their assumption seems to be that we are aware of the problems nowadays and all historic aircraft are being saved for future enthusiasts. Rubbish. I am willing to bet that in twenty years time aviation publications will be recieving letters from readers condeming the enthusiasts of the 80's for their neglect of historic aircraft. You only have to turn to our Preservation News pages in this issue to see the list of Skackletons being dumped in the fire pits and the Vulcans being broken up by bulldozers to realise that in ten years time there will be precious few of these aircraft left, and as to airworthy examples, I doubt if there will be ANY airworthy Canberras, Vulcans or Shackletons. One of our readers had a letter published recently, asking for help in maintaining a Shackleton in airworthy condition. The response was pitifull, and he will probably have to abdondon his plans unless some fairy godfather comes along. So, the next time you plan to write to me about the failings of the RAF Museum or other preservation organisation just ask youself 'What have I done to help the aircraft preservation movement?' If the answer is, as I suspect, 'nothing', then put your pen away and do something about it yourself, because it will be no good complaining in the year 2000 - it will be too late"

Hmmnnnn.....

I think Mike Twite would be quite pleased with the preservation movement today, although far from perfect, I feel individual groups are far more aware then were 20 years ago, sadly the burocrats still are not it seems. Personally, I think it's also a pity Mike Twite's comments didn't prevent the loss to the UK nation of 2 of the 3 airworthy Mosquitoes shortly afterwards. The purchase and import of airworthy US fighters seemed more important at that time than saving rare British types.
Such is life...........

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