RAF Museum Seeks Loan Partners for Aircraft in its Permanent Collection

Britain’s Royal Air Force Museum has, unlike similar military institutions within the United States, rarely loans out its artifacts for display elsewhere. Even then, such occurrences have seemed to result more from ad hoc collaborations than formal policy. However that is set to change, as the following (gently edited) press release describes…

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The RAF Museum’s purpose is to share the story of the Royal Air Force – its past, present, and future – using the narratives of its people and collections to engage, inspire and encourage learning. The RAF Museum is pleased to announce that a selection of our aircraft will now be available to borrow for display.

The aim is to make aircraft from our national collection more publicly accessible, to enable greater exploration of their stories, and to build stronger partnerships between international, national, and regional organizations to support knowledge exchange. Potential borrowers will be able to loan aircraft or request a selection from the list, to be displayed in any appropriate form. The program is open to Expressions of Interest from any accredited international, national or regional museum (or organizations working towards accreditation). Successful borrowers will share information about the RAF Museum alongside the displayed airframe(s), while the RAF Museum will reciprocate by promoting the loanee’s activities too.

The RAF Museum will endeavor to the keep cost of these loans (transportation, courier support where needed) as low as possible and will not recharge internal administration expenses. Nail–to–nail insurance costs must be met by the borrower, however. Detailed condition reports, high-resolution images, and further details about the aircraft will be provided upon request. The loans process will follow the RAF Museum’s Loans Out Policy; details for these procedures are available in the Guide to Borrowing document  under the “How to borrow objects” section. The RAF Museum strongly encourages all potential borrowers to read this document carefully prior to applying for the loan. Expressions of Interest (EOI) for these aircraft must be submitted to the email address below by no later than February 10th, 2022. Following that date, the RAF Museum will contact each EOI received to discuss further steps.

 

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Applications and requests for further information can be submitted to:

Contact: Loans Committee
Email: Loan.Team@rafmuseum.org
Tel: 020 8358 4885

A full listing of the RAF Museum aircraft available for loan is detailed below:

Gloster Meteor F.8 (mod) WK935
Panavia Tornado Prototype XX946
Lockheed Ventura Mk.II AJ469
Percival Pembroke C.1 WV746
British Aerospace Jetstream T.1 XX496
Vickers Varsity Mk.I WL679
Boulton Paul Sea Balliol T.21 WL732
Bristol Type 188 XF926
Cody Kite
Comper C.L.A.7 Swift G-ACGL
Consolidated PBY–6A Catalina BuNo.63993
de Havilland Venom FB.4/50 J-1704
Hawker–Siddeley Argosy C.1 XP411
Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk.XVIe RW393
Vickers Valetta C.3 VX573