Beaufort A9-13 restoration underway - can you help?
May 5, 2014 12:55:57 GMT 12
shorty, ZacYates, and 1 more like this
Post by Andy Wright on May 5, 2014 12:55:57 GMT 12
Thanks to Dave for permission to post this.
The Australian National Aviation Museum, also known as the Moorabbin Air Museum, has begun the restoration of the world's oldest surviving Beaufort, A9-13 (built to an RAF order so originally T9552). She was part of the cache of wrecks recovered for David Tallichet in 1974. Monty Armstrong and Neville Mines (Shorty on here) dismantled and removed the remains. Besides being the oldest surviving Beaufort she is also the only former RAF survivor (flying briefly with No. 100 Sqdn in Australia) and the only survivor with the early turret fitted.
The museum will be restoring the aircraft to static condition while maintaining as much of the original material as possible as the aircraft is in line to be added to the Heritage Register. Of course, as many of you know, the museum is undergoing a bit of a 'rebirth' at the moment with part of its activities concentrating on returning a number of its aircraft to ground-running condition. The Bristol Sycamore and CAC Ceres have already reached this milestone. Based on this, and all going well, it may be possible to ground run the Beaufort once she is complete and on display next to the museum's Beaufighter.
A couple of days ago the museum launched a fundraising effort through Kickstarter. The first step is to restore the Stern Frame (rear section). The fundraising target of this first step is A$5,000 and donations range from $5 to $500 (any amount can be donated of course). As is the norm with Kickstarter you get something in return and the 'thank you gifts' are rather nice (I sourced the books and can certainly vouch for Graeme Gibson's Path Of Duty and Colin King's Song Of The Beauforts) and include membership to the museum, a special Beaufort print, badges, pins etc etc.
If you would like to donate and/or find out more please visit
To find out more about the museum and the Beaufort's history - www.aarg.com.au/dap-beaufort.html
The Australian National Aviation Museum, also known as the Moorabbin Air Museum, has begun the restoration of the world's oldest surviving Beaufort, A9-13 (built to an RAF order so originally T9552). She was part of the cache of wrecks recovered for David Tallichet in 1974. Monty Armstrong and Neville Mines (Shorty on here) dismantled and removed the remains. Besides being the oldest surviving Beaufort she is also the only former RAF survivor (flying briefly with No. 100 Sqdn in Australia) and the only survivor with the early turret fitted.
The museum will be restoring the aircraft to static condition while maintaining as much of the original material as possible as the aircraft is in line to be added to the Heritage Register. Of course, as many of you know, the museum is undergoing a bit of a 'rebirth' at the moment with part of its activities concentrating on returning a number of its aircraft to ground-running condition. The Bristol Sycamore and CAC Ceres have already reached this milestone. Based on this, and all going well, it may be possible to ground run the Beaufort once she is complete and on display next to the museum's Beaufighter.
A couple of days ago the museum launched a fundraising effort through Kickstarter. The first step is to restore the Stern Frame (rear section). The fundraising target of this first step is A$5,000 and donations range from $5 to $500 (any amount can be donated of course). As is the norm with Kickstarter you get something in return and the 'thank you gifts' are rather nice (I sourced the books and can certainly vouch for Graeme Gibson's Path Of Duty and Colin King's Song Of The Beauforts) and include membership to the museum, a special Beaufort print, badges, pins etc etc.
If you would like to donate and/or find out more please visit
To find out more about the museum and the Beaufort's history - www.aarg.com.au/dap-beaufort.html