SWAM

Quarterly Newsletter April 2025

Main Hangar

January

As you will have noticed John and myself have decided to do a quarterly

newsletter, we thought a bigger letter would contain more information and give us more time to edit and produce it. Hope you all enjoy its good read!

Unfortunately the newsletter begins with sad news of Sians father, I know we all send our sympathy to both Sian and John.

We now have a Online Calendar app set up by Kieran (for those who are knowledgeable!) he has kindly offered help on his mobile if I have any media problems ‘stop laughing’ Martin!

While John Stone had been off for January having his ‘glass eyes’, Gareth Jones took over ‘the baton’ and informed me of the Restoration Hanger work load.

Evidently during that month there has been progress on the wing of our new exhibit the Varsity and the Phantom cockpit. David is doing his best to improve the poster for them of the DC6.

John Wood has been doing a few jobs, sticking signs up informing the danger of ejection seats on the Vampire and doing a paint job on the Tornado ZA326 due to the removal of gaffa tape on its airframe. His main job during January has been the polishing of our Commander Sea King, which was in dire need of attention. Paul has been busy with his ‘box of tricks’

installing new lights inside it (not green ones this time Boss)! It should become a better attraction this year. Unfortunately, the BAE 146 ‘off side’ looks really forlorn, especially now with no engine fittings etc.

Due to lack of security it seems to have had some uninvited guests (not ones with a long tail)!

The Café has yet another new menu but retains it ‘hearty breakfast’. To Emma’s relief it passed 100% on their hygiene inspection.

We had a school visit on the 21st JANUARY from Maes y Coed PS Pontypridd, probably be the last big school group due to lack of sufficient volunteers able to attend. The 8 – 9 year olds enjoyed their tour and their trip to the Artic Circle and Tromso in Norway.

Tour guided by 6 volunteers including Stephen one of our trustees.

February 

This month seems to have flown by and appreciate doing a quarterly newsletter. We have been quite busy for this time of the year. On the 2nd February, a large group of car enthusiasts arrived unexpectedly, Emma, Izzy, and Holly did a grand job of feeding them. They were so impressed that said, a return trip must be on the cards, low and behold on 2nd March a larger group of Classic cars arrived again unexpectedly! The meeting gave Emma and gang some good business.

8th February was the Night Shoot event arranged by Matthew Blunt, thankfully this year we had the bonus of a lovely ‘dry’ evening. The towing by Jon of some of the planes for display outside, was done during visitors’ time. The visitors enjoyed the excitement of the procedure! Gazza was seen attempting to drive the towing machine just in case Jon was unavailable, thank goodness we never had Gazza doing the ‘Wackey Racing’!

A ‘spring’ tidy up around the hangar was done and the ‘boat’ moved to a new life (still on balcony) after a few years living a sad one in the defunct play area.

With so many pictures donated to us to find space for, sadly the lovely painted walls that Sian did for the play area had to go, as they were inappropriate for the room’s new use as a picture gallery.

19th 1st Llantwit Major Scouts visited us. It was our first evening visit of 2025. 16, 11-14 year olds enjoyed their tour with volunteers, Dave Smith, David Taylor, and Mark doing the evening.

27th ATC Visit. Pencoed, Porthcawl Kenfig Hill, and St Athan groups of 12 – 18 year olds, Dave Smith, David Taylor, Darren and Kevin hosted.

We had a busy half term keeping us on our toes! In the café we sadly had to say a farewell to Evie, but it was nice to see Chloe returning to the fold. We also had the sad news that Emma has decided to move on, she has done a grand job in the short time as our café manageress, her cheerful face will be sorely missed in the Café but she will be back as a volunteer.

Unfortunately, we have had problems with the building, the ceiling above the corridor connecting to the future café has become a safety hazard and is now being repaired. This has meant the ladies toilets has been moved next to the gents! Hopefully not for long.

A pub crawl to celebrate David, and Gazza’s birthdays had to be cancelled due to poor Gazza falling and now for several weeks limited to a ‘couch’ potato life! This event will be held now in better weather.

Events to go. 

Raes Meet. Talk about a Mosquito plane. 8 volunteers confirmed for event. April 9th.

Easter weekend is being organized by our enthusiastic team Sian and Phil, with a rabbit raffle in the shop with Linda.

V.E. Day is being held in the museum the 5th May , a weekend with the café decorated for the event celebrating a ‘Street Party’! Any ideas welcomed. Aine and Pat are holding a stall for the museum in Ewenny on the 11th for V.E. Day.

Things still in the pipe line to visit the De Havilland Aviation Museum being organized by Mark Condon on the 13th May.

We had a ‘really hectic’ day on the 16th, the South Glamorgan ATC celebrated their

84th Anniversary with a parade of 136 cadets

at the museum. They spent the whole day with us so it was lovely seeing the youngsters enjoying themselves and the visitors. I am sure were happy to watch them doing their parade. Thankfully the weather was kind and it turned out to be a lovely sunny day but a bit cold. The 2 Dylans did a good job as tour guides.

Well February over and hopefully a warmer month ahead!

MARCH

The 3rd month and I feel I have been doing it

ages! Another session on funny jokes to plough through from all and sundry!

The month started with the return of the classic car visit, we are becoming an ideal reconnoitre place for car enthusiasts. Lets hope they are spreading the word we are here.

4th March a return visit of the Pontypool Men’s Retirement Association took place with 48 members. They were impressed by the increase of the number of planes since their last visit in 2022.

13th March a visit by the 6th Penarth Cubs 24 8-10 ear olds this was their second visit the last one May 2023.

16th March the Urban Art Group spent the day with us drawing and painting the planes, fortunately the sun was out but still a cool day.

19th March. St Athan PS a visit by 16 children, organised by Leanne Burnett as a treat for the 6 year pupils whose classroom was destroyed by a fire.

Linda & Martin and Mark Sainsbury hosted.

25th March. Tai EC 16 pupils from Tonypandy. They really enjoyed their day hosted by Dave Smith and Kevin.

John Buckthought reminded us of Operation Varsity at the end of the war involving hundreds of Stirling planes and Horse Gliders.

John Wood still busy on the Sea King it now has nice clear anti glare panels. Roy has his Sunday visit to the office doing his secret work!!! David and Stu all

excited about bits brought in by visitors for the rooms! We now have a Gaz and a Gazza! Poor Gazza is still off with his leg problem but we were pleased to see Phil Salmon was fit enough for duty this weekend.

Dennise is enjoying her time in the shop and Helen is off sunning herself!

The Memorial Garden is a glow with spring flowers. Our Woman in Flight Room and the Service Room organised by Pat and David were at last opened officially to the public. Though suggested as a joke 1 year ago, we did have a small ceremony a ribbon cut by the leader of St Athan ATC, and a buffet which was really nice. Both rooms will be on going as well as the local St Athan room.

Well, it is full steam ahead with the Easter Egg visit, the Bank Holidays next month and the work done towards our new café and toilets. Good luck to our new Chef and a great sunny Easter Break to everyone.

The ‘Restoration Team’

It has been a very busy three months for the restoration team since our last newsletter report, with some challenging ongoing projects progressing at a pace. The winter months being our first challenge of the year working in our cold industrialised area at the bottom hangar, where the facilities are rather ‘basic’ and the heating system consist of many cups of tea or coffee. You would find the team members huddled together in the corner of the hangar each wearing many layers of clothing and Woolley hats are the standard forms of uniform. It was so cold on the shop floor that even the drill bits were unable to make any impression on the hardened metal when trying to drill the wing Spar of the Varsity aircraft mainplanes!

Therefore, the second challenge this quarter was to rebuild the Varsity wing spar root end fittings that had been cut off during the wing dismantling process. The large and quite heavy blocks of metal needed to be lifted into place then drilled to size in order to facilitate the bolts and angle iron struts to hold the connecting spar pieces together. It was a real team effort with just about everybody in the restoration team getting involved with the drilling and

assembly process. Though, amazingly we did get through numerous new drill bits of various sizes, that would quickly become blunt and constantly ‘burn out’ whilst drilling, which unusually is due to the spar being made of hardened and tempered steel. Well, that is old fashioned 1940’s and 1950’s aircraft design and manufacturing build technology for you! However, finally we have succeeded and the Varsity wing spar root end fitting rebuilds have now been completed and both the wings have been fitted to the Varsity’s fuselage.

A third challenge or rather more of an altercation really was the English Electric Canberra aircraft which is strategically parked outside in all the elements, next to the small NHS building. The Canberra unfortunately suffered considerable storm damage during the high winds encountered this winter. Though, not really a problem for our excellent airframe and metal repairs specialists in the guise of Iain, Brian, Elved, Tom and Markus (who is hoping to join the RAF as an Aircraft Technician ( Mechanical), soon), and together the team have expertly repaired the storm damage and made the old 1950’s Royal Navy target tower / bomber looking good again. The flaps, flap shrouds, and engine cowlings which were strewn all over the surrounding grass area due to the storms have

now been refitted and tucker pop riveted permanently to the Canberra airframe. Additionally, the port side mainwheel has also been replaced with a new mainwheel, where the original tyre and inertube kept deflating. Under Brian’s ‘wheel bay experience’ supervision, our premier team had also repaired and carried out a full servicing to the new Canberra mainwheel tyre and inertube before having to fit the replacement mainwheel to the aircraft.

Whilst the Varsity mainplanes were the priority tasking this season, the three amigos known colloquially as the three Gareth’s (Yellow Gary, Gareth Jones and Gareth Wednesday) along with Mark and under the tutelage of Hugh, have been quietly refurbishing the Phantom FGR 2 cockpit in the background. They have made considerable repairs to the sides of the cockpit fuselage with some neat and strong airframe repair techniques including a couple of very intricate metal insert repairs, again displaying very good dexterity and technical skill of hand. Also, in unison the back end of the Phantom cockpit has been completely refurbished where it has been cut off from the main aircraft fuselage, the team have built around this back area a new woodwork panelling to cover up the sharp edges and ragged metal, this woodwork has also been painted in ‘battleship grey’ to finish the cockpit off.

Of course the restoration team is not just all about aeroplanes. There are many and varied numerous gash jobs and non aircraft tasks also carried out by the boys. Our ‘Team Gallo’ is always readily available with his strimmer and industrial garden blower. You may have noticed lately that the hedgerows, bushes and pathways are much neater and nicely trimmed up with Gallo’s wonderful gardening work around the Museums outside surrounds. Also, earlier in the year some members of the restoration team were involved with the painting of the walls of the room destined to become the Museums new art gallery. Though, I think Gallo got most of the paint down his own overalls! However, using Rogers’s constant enthusiasm and some RAF Regiment tactical initiative, we were able to ‘break into’ the standing fuselage of the Varsity for a reconnaissance operation in order to find out exactly how the mainplanes are going to be fitted and also locate the elusive wing attachment bolts.

Finally, the Boeing 747 special cockpit (Volcano dust engine blowout) rebuild/refurbishment has been progressing well and is almost been completed. Where, a very long lists of restoration team members have been involved with the work on this exhibit. However, Jim,

Gallo, Davy, Roger and myself fitted the new windscreens recently and Hugh, Gallo and Elved fitted the seats, with some persuasion and good old fashion ‘riggering’ they managed to get them fitted in the correct positions. Paul the Lecky has been wiring up the Flight Engineers consol and coming up with all sorts of his own self built electrical gizmos to make it all work so as to ‘light up’ the cockpit consoles. Whilst, Paul has been beavering away Jim has also managed to ‘muscled in’ as Paul’s assistant. Being an ex Navy avionics artificer, Jim‘s electrical experience has also been extremely helpful to the refurbishment.

In conclusion, it has been a busy first quarter to this year with the restoration team working on new exhibits for the museum such as: Varsity, English Electric Canberra, WK 126, RAF Mc Donnell Douglas Phantom, FGR-2, XV499 cockpit and Boeing 747 cockpit, G – BDXH.

As we now move forward to the Spring / Summer months, work is about to commence on the ongoing projects: Douglas DC-6, G-APSA, Harrier, XZ 969, Shackleton, Varsity and any other projects as they come into the Museum. John

Fact of the day:

In 1955 English Electric Canberra B.2, WK126 was used for ground testing a MK.2C ejector seat by Martin-Baker. It flew on 19 th January 1956 by Captain Jack ED ‘Scotty’ Scott, using a

dummy to test the seat. The dummy was unhurt during the test!

Restoration team members painting the new SWAM art gallery room.