What did we contribute to ?
Since 2002, the Brussels Air Museum
Fund and the Brussels Air Museum Restoration Society developed an
innovative process to speed up restorations.
The process is based on
the following points.
- The promotion activities can not be limited
to Belgium
and must use up to date techniques.
- There is a strong demand in the public to
be informed.
- Most of the volunteers have expertise but
are part time.
- A volunteer is available 6 hours / week at
the Museum but he can help more from home.
- Many of the needed knowledge to restore
aircraft is disappearing with the death of experts trained in the 1940’s
and 1950’s.
- An aircraft is a very complex machine
needing more than a one man expertise.
- Companies with the needed quality and skill
are available in Belgium
and worldwide.
- With limited financial help and well
defined targets, most of the restoration works can be outsourced to
specialized partners. This way the needed time to restore an aircraft can
be reduced from to a ratio from 10 to 1.
- The expertise must be kept and preserved
within the organizations but there is no need to do what someone do better
than us.
- Working with external partners boost
expertise within the organizations to monitor and control the outsourced
works.
- The knowledge need to be shared within the
organizations and with outside experts.
- The technical documentation, pictures,
testimonies anything which can help restoration need to archived a way
information are preserved for future and easily shared with partners to
speed up the restorations.
Theses principles were
first applied to the Aviatik, the Fieseler Storch and the Bleriot Olieslagers.
 Aviatik C1 : All the
available drawings, technical descriptions, information and historical data
were electronically stored. Based on these information a budget can be
established. Although no sponsor has not yet been found, if the restoration
works need to be started, all information are available to immediately start
the operations. Thanks to the archiving activities a digital rendition of the
aircraft already exists. See here the digital Aviatik.
 Fieseler Storch : A
strong cooperation between the Museum, the Bamf, the Bamrs, Ateliers Poncelet and
Firmin Henrard permitted to restore the wood wings of the aircraft in two
years. The Bamrs provided the financial help on a 2 year budget. The Bamrs
prepared the works and defined the works to be performed. Frequent visits
permitted to fix technical problems and to control the planning and the quality
of the works. The Museum help with logistic support and global controlling. On
returning to the Museum , the wings were displayed with the authorizations of
the Museum. Regular updated on the Bamrs website keep the sponsors and the
public aware of the progresses. On the Bamrs site you can find details of the
operations.
 Bleriot Olieslagers :
In this case, the major issue was to reengineer the aircraft as no drawings
were available of this particular model. As a low priority project, it was
decided to concentrate the efforts on building the undercarriage, the most
complicated sub assembly and to accumulate as much as possible documentation.
One of the sponsors of the Bamf provided the wood needed to build the
undercarriage. The Bamf searched and found a company to build the missing
metallic parts. Visits to Memorial flight in Paris and world wide researches permitted to
prepare drawings. The Ateliers Poncelet produced the wood frame and the
undercarriage was assembled by the Bamrs. Thanks to Dragan Saler, who already
produced the digital Aviatik, a virtual Bleriot was made available. The
operations currently continue on preparing the future manufacturing of the
fuselage
.
 Voisin de Caters :
Thanks to the experience gained with the Storch and the Bleriot, the same
process was applied on the Voisin. The Bamf provide budgets for the
manufacturing of the lower wings. All documentation was scanned and stored on
digital media. The Bamrs prepared the missing drawings and coordinate the
manufacturing with Ateliers Poncelet who produced the parts.
On the Bamf website, you can discover more on the project and our pictures gallery provide you details of our progress.
See also “A B-25 back to Belgium”
project
At the origin, the Bamf
mostly provided funds to acquire parts or aircraft (see yearly reports for
details) and promote aviation heritage in Belgium.
Today the strong
cooperation between the Bamf and the Bamrs permit also to use at best donations
from our sponsors to have a fast return on investment.
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