News
Viscount Move
Story added 8th September 2007 by Malcolm
Wednsday the 5th saw a party from the Museum travel to Hatch (Beds) to start the loading of the Viscount wings & to prepare for the fuselage lift the next day & transportation of both loads to Coventry.
The wing lifting went very well ably controlled & supervised by Mark one of our long term volunteers. Everyone arrived early on the Thursday morning in good spirits ready for the fuselage lift & journey back to Coventry. Im afraid the fuselage never gave in as easily as the wings & caused a few headaches before finally accepting that we really meant business. Tim from Skysports Engineering gave us incredible support & help, without which I guess we would still be there. Final loading finished at about 3pm which left us a journey through rush hour traffic at the Coventry end. Aware of the drivers time limits we set off & after carefully but only just negotiating the village "S" bend we hit the A14 & M6. Both Hutchinson & Allums drivers did us proud on the journey back, which went without mishap & with very little traffic disruption.
On arrival at the museum at about 6pm the convey entered the site & starting with the fuselage unloading quickly began. To cut a long story short we closed the museum gates after the transporters & cranes left at around 11:30pm. Thanks must also go to the resident & volunteer museum staff who stayed on to provide all the lighting & refreshments. The unloading of both transporters was, thanks to some skilled Hi Ab operators trouble free.
The fuselage is now being cleaned & stabilised, whilst this is in progress Vicky will not be open for public access until well in to next year. But you are more than welcome to visit us & take your own personal photos of this new Midlands resident, talk to the Viscount 35 Associations restoration team & judge for yourself what a large undertaking it is.
