Warbird Information Exchange

SUMMARY FURTHER DOWN BELOW: Don't forget to look at the bottom of
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/BAM2007/index.html .
And please sign or at least voice your concerns! You don't have to be Belgian to do this and it is free...

Below is a "less official version" of what can be found at the weblink...

The Belgian Army Museum/Belgisch Legermuseum is about to renovate the Aviation Hall over the next few years. No big deal you'd say. Well, no....
The rather fragile World War One aircraft collection (with some UNIQUE "last original one left"-examples) had better not be moved too much! The same applies to several less older planes...

And that is exactly what the Museum Management is planning to do: move the WHOLE collection to some rather ill-suited windy, tatty and moisty hangars with leaky roofs and practically non-existing security.
Some nicely-preserved aircraft were moved from Brussels to the storage facilities over the years and in the recent past and now they will have to be restored AGAIN!

And the move isn't even necessary: the aircraft can remain in place while the Hall is being renovated. According to building experts...
You'd say that the Museum Management should know this. Well, the care, maintenance, restoration, research and know-how of the aviation collection (and the finances to fund this all...) is now entirely in the hands of volunteers from a handful of organisations.

Volunteers who are entirely ignored by the Museum Management, not even briefing them on short notice on what they are planning to do with the aircraft they maintain, let alone telling anything about long-term plans...

Secretly some aircraft have already been moved from the museum over the last few months. This while the renovation has not even been budgeted! Or the global renovation plan outlined...

Knowing some Belgian governmental bodies it will probably take YEARS before the renovation is finally completed. And the collection will have to be moved in again.
A collection that has seriously degraded over the years in totally inadequate buildings. This collection will have to be restored.
PROBLEM: there are no paid full-time restoration people with aviation knowledge working at the Brussels Museum. And if there were any they wouldn't know where to start!
Restorations also cost a LOT of money. Museums generally don't have much money available. Over the years experience has even shown that the Belgian Army Museum is hugely UNDERFUNDED. This is not likely to change in future.

RESULT: all the public will be able to see is a wrecked collection. Perhaps some artefacts will in the end only be good for scrap...

SUMMARY: What will happen if no-one complains? A lot of rather fragile aircraft and artefacts will be moved entirely unnecessary to storage facilities that are not worth the name "facility".
The Brussels Museum will not have a single aircraft available to the general public for years! Or at most a very small collection.

When the renovation has finally come to an end a severely degraded collection will be moved back in.

This collection will have to be restored again. As ALL work to do this will have to be done voluntarily and NO museum-funds will probably become available to the few volunteers there is a real danger that the restorations will never happen, leaving a rather wrecked collection in a nice and shiny building...

I doubt the petition will do any good, but I signed it anyway. The aviation part of the museum has been looked at badly for years. The big guys seem to find the army part much more important. They just don't care. If it hadn't been for the volunteers, I think most of the collection would have been scrapped years ago.
I've worked in a Belgian military museum in the past as a volunteer and I can only describe it as enormously frustrating. They just don't care.

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

About everytime I see a mention of the Legermuseum in a tourist brochure it is accompanied by a photo of the Aviation Hall.

I'd say the aircraft collection is the biggest attraction to the public!

As for the military vehicles in the courtyard without a roof above them: I think they are rusting a lot more than the planes!

yeah, it looks nice in the brochure and that's about it. Leaking roof, pigeons. Thick layers of dust/crap on the aircraft. No heating,... The list goes on. Those volunteers really doe amazing work. Without them the collection would be doomed.

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

Simply put, the museum doesn't do what it is supposed to do...
In my eyes a museum is there to preserve history and act in the best intrest of their exhibits...
I don't think this is what the museum is doing now, most of it exhibits would be better of in private hands..
I've known a group of people that wanted to restore for the museum a rare halftrack that is currently rotting away in the yard of the museum at their expense. The museum declinded, they were going to do it theirself in the near future. This was five years ago, the track hasn't moved an inch since then.
I signed the petition anyway...

Just my two cents
Christophe

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'43 Willys MB

typical

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Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

That is pretty much what I wrote on the comment box. If people are willing to help you out then let them!

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Shop the Airplane Bunker At
www.warbirdbunker.com

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is one of the world's most significant aircraft collections - facing a dubious future. I don't know what the proper solution is, except a lot of cash well spent, but a good start is the petition - please get as many people you know to sign it.

From memory, it has, among other treasures:
* One of the world's top W.W.I collections, including many unique types and several German airship gondolas
* Spitfires and Hurricane
* DH Mosquito NF.30 (unique)
* Fairey Battle (one of four)
* MiG 25
* An unrivalled worldwide collection of 1950s jets
* Several Percival and Miles types of major importance, and a couple which are unique
* Several important Stampe types
* An important collection of light aircraft throughout history
* A remarkably diverse and important engine collection
* A selection of important transport types, such as a Caravelle, Ju52/3m (Casa) Fairchild Boxcar, Airspeed Oxford, Arctic-used DHC Otter...
* Several ex- Canadian aircraft, including a CF-100, Bolingbroke and the above mentioned Battle.
* A significant collection of postwar US military jets, accompanied by period aircraft of other nations - a display that cannot be equalled anywhere else.

In terms of international diversity, and aspects of aviation represented, it has to be one of the top museums in Europe (and thus, the world) particularly for it's size; while the comprehensive nature of certain collections (1950s jets and W.W.I types) outranks almost ANY collection in the world.


I appreciate your frustration, but we've got to start somewhere, and I don't agree that a huge response on a petition won't have an effect.

For us non-Belgians, just because it's not near 'home' is no reason not to stand up and be counted; and in fact I hope the more international interest is shown the more chance of a proper museum level approach can be made rather than what appears to be a programmed trashing of irreplaceable technical history. We've all bemoaned museum aircraft loss in the past; here's a chance that's really easy to do something about it. Yes, that's YOU. PLEASE sign.

I'd also urge my fellow Editors here on WIX to ensure the failure of the museum to achieve its basic mandate (preservation, presentation and education) by failing to protect the collection and failing to make a plan public (if there is one) is publicised in their magazines. I am currently awaiting a reply from the museum to my enquiry for an explanation for this situation - it does not auger well that no response has been received, but international embarrassment (which can be a role YOU play here on WIX) can and should cause a change of direction.

Thank you for signing.

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

If they need cash, why not sell off some of their collection, like how other museums have done in the past? (Aviodome comes to mind; sold their Spitfire last year or so)

I don't think cash is the real problem, as far as I know the museum is property of the Belgian government and a part of our department of defense. So cash is at hand, it is just the lack of intrest of the people in charge..

Christophe

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'43 Willys MB

Hello James, you can edit "Mig-25" to "Mig-23BN".
As you can see at
http://www.brusselsairmuseum.be/aircraf ... logger.jpg Brussels has "only" got a "bog-standard" Mig-23...
Well, if you can call a "Flogger" ordinary...

For the rest your message is "spot on"!

A rather comprehensive list ("sans numeros") on a non-official website:
http://www.brusselsairmuseum.be/aircraftondisplay/ .