APPEAL --- PLEASE Help these people SEE SENSE !!!!!!

[Guest]

A few thoughts:If the Vulcan is such an important artifact, it shouldn't be hard to raise the funds needed to restore it from private sources. That is the way it is done here. All of this venting probably feels good, but I submit that the Vulcan folks did not do their research if they believed that they were likely to be completely funded by the British Government and its lottery funds. Interesting that no one has brought up the fact that the US Government does not bankroll the preservation of flying copies of its most historic airplanes. Has anyone seen a B-47 flying at an airshow, restoration funded completely by the US Govt? How about a B-36? A B-29? The famous B-17? Has the US Govt preserved any of its famous naval ships as museums, fully funded by taxpayer dollars? The answer to all of these is no. This important work is being handled by private, non-profit organizations dedicated specifically to those causes. The Smithsonian. The Museum of Flight. The Confederate Air Force. The USS Hornet Musuem. The USS Missouri Museum. The Museum of Naval Aviation. All private, non-profit organizations. Yes, they recieve some funding from the government, but taxpayer dollars are not a large part of their revenue base.Remember the Enterprise, the most famous carrier of the WWII? You would think that of all the ships from that era, it would have been preserved. After all, it served at Midway, perhaps the most important naval battle of the War, if not the century, as well as most of the major naval engagements thereafter. It's gone. Traces can probably be found in buildings and machines all over the world - it was sold for scrap. And it is the same in the cultural world. Much is made of the National Endowment of the Arts. The fact is that theatres, opera companies, museums and dance companies usually recieve less than 10% of their funding from ALL government sources - federal, state and local. They are responsible for raising their own budgets through ticket sales and donations. The reasons are many.First, this model works the best. It puts the responsiblity for funding for these priorities where it belongs - with those who care most about them. Second, there simply isn't enough government money to go around. How do you even begin to make decisions on what is most important? Compelling cases can be made for all of the planes, ships and bases I noted above. But you can't save all of them. Even the National Parks Service which runs the most beautiful amy post in US, the Presidio in San Francisco, has to support its operations from private sources.Third, the US Military, rightly, needs to spend its budget on current threats and needs. Yes, heritage is important, but not as important as meeting the core mission of protecting this country. To close, if everyone who responded to this thread gave the Vulcan fund $1,000, they would be $40,000 closer to their goal. If the 5,000 some odd AVSIM members each gave $100, they would be half a million closer to their goal. Talk is cheap folks. If this project is really important to you, open up your own wallets and make a gift. That is the most beneficial thing you can do.Colin Ware

[Guest]

Talk is cheap folks. If this project is really important to you, open up your own wallets and make a gift. That is the most beneficial thing you can do.MANY HAVE Already.. and I'm confident most, if not All of those "supporters" in this thread have already done so.

[Misha_K 0]

I have to agree with Mike T. and Rob Corp that the attack on asylum seekers here is in extremely poor taste and completely uncalled for. Whatever the merits of the Vulcan restoration project, there is no need for such outrageous tactics. Having worked pro bono helping refugees (that's what they are) obtain asylum in the US, I can tell you that these people go through the most harrowing things to make it alive to a place where they can live in peace. I don't know the specific situation in the UK, but generally speaking most Western countries have codified into their respective national laws the basic definition of "refugee" from the Geneva Conventions and the Refugee Convention. Pusruant to this, an applicant for asylum must prove a reasonable fear of persecution on the basis of race, gender, membership in a political organization or a social group. This may sound legalese to you, but a Kosovar Albanian or a Tibetan or a Tutsi has quite a concrete idea of what this means and can probably show you many scars of such persecution if he/she survived to make it across to where you are. It is not the fault of these poor people that the administrative process invloved in most Western countries takes very long and that in most Western countries asylum applicants are barred from obtaining work permits while their applications are still pending. Believe me, there is nothing they would want more than the ability to work and support themselves and not be dependent on the state's or others' handouts, yet the legal regime prevents that until the relevant government bureaucracy has gotten around to processing their applications. Given the vastly larger sums spent on military as opposed to sustainable development and poverty reduction (oh, also what about the money we spend on supporting repressive regimes that generate these refugees?), don't you think your comparison is highly inappropiate?Peace,Misha

[Guest]

There are plenty of Comets flying today - they are in Royal Navy grey and called Nimrods.

[Vulcan 14]

Mike,Yes I do write from the UK and I *do* appreciate the relevance of the Spitfire and, prehaps more importantly, the forgotten Hurricane and all those who had to fight that battle.The point I was trying to make is that the Vulcan is just as important but for different reasons.Phoenix 1 points out the active rolls of the Vulcan but I submit that those roles are not in the hearts of Brits as is the BoB.The Vulcan did play its part in keeping the Western World safer but for me at least it is worth saving for its sheer uniqueness and engineering excellence as well as the thrill it gives air show crowds.I am one of those who believes that such 'things' should not be mothballed in a museum but should be used as intended. I have the same feelings for old racing cars and steam locomotives.Rgds

[Guest]

Last time I checked, most asylum seekers were human beings. Most want a shot at what we take for granted: opportunity for their children; a safe, clean place to live; freedom of religion; a shot at having more control over their own destinies. The only difference between them and you, is that you were lucky enough to be born in a free country. They were not.Oh, and re. the B-52 - the US Government does not bankroll the preservation in flight condition of aicraft ships etc. They leave that to private organizations and make them responsible for their own funding.

[maxter 0]

Campo, nah mate, just pulling your leg. Lightening up the thread.All the best with the Perth Test really. You guys could really do with a break.Cheers,Chris Porter:-outtaPerthWestern Australiahttp://members.iinet.net.au/~portercb/flyp...ta_tester_3.jpg

[Guest]

Having posted several notes, I now think I know why my negative reaction to this thread is so strong. Why is this setback permanent? The article and posts all make it sound like it's all over but the shouting. Game over. Pack up your things and go home. The poor bird will rust away to nothing in some dank, dark hanger unless the evil civil servants change their minds. Good grief. If everyone had this attitude then there would be no great museums, no great theatres, no great memorials, no great universities, no great hospitals and no great monuments to our heroes Here in the US, even the great monuments in Washington are not paid for by the government - the land may be provided but construction and operating funds are funded by private donations and work cannot start until it is secured.It took over ten years of hard fundraising to come up with the money for the Viet Nam Veteran's memorial. Guess what? The men and women who worked on that committee got rejected far more times than they got the check. But they got the job done. Who else has been asked for money? How many major gift proposals have been written? Outside of this website, how else is money being solicited? If this project is worthwhile, the volunteers believe in it and you have a couple of folks in your circle of friends who know anything about fundraising, you will raise the money. It will just be a bit harder than getting it all from the Lottery. Perhaps there is a cultural divide here that I am just not bridging. The expectation that the Government should fund something like this, seems somewhat unrealistic to this American fundraiser (I do this for a living - I'm the Director of Development at the Culinary Institute of America). Colin Ware

[Guest]

Guys can we please get this Back into perspective or bring an end to the whole thread??the initial post was simply an APPEAL for those who dissagree with the decision to state their views in an email .. it was NOT an insult to Asylum seekers or anyone else. That donation was mentioned simply for comparison.it was NOT an invitation to flame the US or UK Governments (The Lottery fund is NOT a goverment agency)As said once before , If you agree the Vulcan should be saved then write to the HLF and suggest a change of attitude If you dont agree the Vulcan should be saved then why bother even posting here ?After All.. if you see a TV Appeal for "Save the children" You either donate or you dont .. Sureley you dont write them and say "hey Cat's are more important" .. do you ?

[Guest Toni Rauch]

GrahamI agree, but what have cats ever done to you? ;) Toni.

[Guest]

Thanks Toni Ok .. NOW I WILL Be flamed !:) :) :) :) I JUST HATE CATS.... PERIOD .... I think we should use em as OVEN GLOVES !!!:)

[Guest]

It would be, until you remember that assistance to asylum seekers is NOT part of the mission of the HLF and that asylum seekers also get billions from other sources (mainly the government, thus the taxpayer).

[Guest]

The Vulcan served with distinction during the Falklands war, carrying out the longest bombing mission (in time and distance) in history (to date, it might have been superceded in that by B-2s flying missions to Yugoslavia and Afghanistan from the continental US).The cold war was also a very real conflict. Despite what some people want us to believe, the Soviets were prepared to invade and take over if we let our guard down (and IMO we let it down too soon, we've cut back way too far in NATO since 1991).The Vulcan was an integral part of the European (not just British) nuclear deterrent for a good part of that conflict when it was critically needed.The fact that no veterans brought them home after dangerous missions is testimony to the success of the aircraft.The best military is not the military that fights and wins an allout war. It is the military that, by its very existence, is instrumental in preventing wars from starting in the first place.While sometimes called controversial, it is a fact of life that the existence (on both sides of course) of long range nuclear delivery capability and weapons has prevented a global conflict for the last 57 years. The average interval between such conflicts (growing ever larger in scale as the technology got more advanced and the countries involved larger in number) before that was 30 years of less.The very existence of these weapons has meant that war no longer was the easiest way out of disagreements between nations and groups of nations. The Vulcan is an integral part of that story.I fully agree that spending the money to make it airworthy might not be the best way to preserve that memory. But to write the Vulcan of as a byline in aviation and military history because no large fleets of them came back from battle to glorious victory with bulletholes in their tails and wings is going too far for me.

[Guest]

hmm, oven + cat == Chinese food :-lolYou make me hungry :-rotor

[Guest]

And before anyone flames me, I don't endorse violence to animals.I wasn't talking about putting a living cat in an oven. Only after killing the animal as painlessly as possible and properly cleaning and marinating it.