Things are progressing steadily with the restoration.

The mock up of the perspex panels for the front gun turret have been completed & are on display in the hangar.  Our thanks to Graeme Hore for his work in this area.

Nigel, our archivist, has been busy.  He has put onto our data base lists of manuals in our possession & also scanned in the many Squadron photos given to us.  If you are interested in seeing this archival material there is a link from the home page.  If you have any archival material relating to liberators & are prepared to share, please let Nigel know.  We will take good care of anything sent to us &, if so wished, will return it to you after scanning,

Once again we have had many visitors, even though Winter makes the hangar an icy place to be in!  The restorers do have difficulties in keeping warm.  We had a vision impaired group through recently & tailored the tour to meet their specific needs.  Our guides painted lots of word pictures & allowed the people the opportunity to touch artefacts.  The tour was so well received that the group left a substantial donation.

We're currently investigating the possibility of producing a calendar featuring the Liberator.  If it works out these calendars will be on sale in the shop later in the year.

We're still receiving positive feedback from the Sqadron members who had their reunion with us prior to Anzac Day.  Opinion is firmly on the side of a repeat performance for 21, 23 & 24 Squadrons next year.  458 Squadron will be holding their reunion at the hangar in November this year. 

Our thanks to Denis O'Brien.  He operates a boiler services business in Sunshine, Victoria.  Denis provides all volunteers who work on the restoration with a shirt featuring our logo, as well as his.  This donation is greatly appreciated by the Fund.  It gives us the opportunity to "look good" while working on the restoration .

Lots happened in April.

We had a visit from Ringwood RSL & they were very interested in the restoration.  We also had a group from Alzeimers Sufferers.  Again they found things to interest them.  Their carer found much of value in the visit & will bring another group in May.

Stuart Borlase, a documentary film maker from Perth arrived with his cameraman Luke Middlemiss.. His company is concerned with preserving the memories of those who partricipated in WW2.  Stuart spent 2 days filming our work crew & interviewing those members who were Lib. air/ground crew during the war & got lots of information.

On 24th April we had the highlight of the month.  21, 23 & 24 Squadrons asked if they could have a combined reunion at the hangar.  Up till now each squadron has met separately but the numbers of people able to attend the reunions are falling.  So they combined & came to lunch at the hangar instead & caught up with people they hadn't seen for many years.  Counting family & carers we served lunch for 110.  It was a great day & the veterans really enjoyed themselves:  so much so that they want to do the same thing next year.  Stuart & Luke also attended & made contact with many people willing to have their memories recorded.

If any of you are veterans & prepared to be interviewed by Stuart please let me know on 03 9734 0094 & I'll pass your details to him.  He will be visiting Melbourne again in a couple of months.

On Tuesday 17th February a group of 7 men from the Australian Society of Aviation Artists Inc visited the hangar.  They photographed the aircraft and made sketches.  They will use these as the basis for future paintings.  The group works in oils, pastels and water colours.  As Tuesdays are working days the area was too busy for painting to be attempted.  The group hope to visit some time in the near future, on a non working day to work on their paintings.  This is another example of the wide appeal of the restoration.

The dismantling of Hangar 4 has commenced with the removal of the asbestos roof & walls.  It is planned to retain the wooden spans to be incorporated into a smaller version of this WW2 type building.

The clean out of Hangar 1 has started in preparation for it's refurbishment & eventual lease by our organisation.  The hangar move is still planned for 2010.

Preparations & planning for our 20th anniversary in October indicate that we are going to be busy that weekend as we have received over 100 acceptances to date.

The test prop has been fitted to our number 2 engine in preparation for a low power engine run in the near future.   This will be followed by a test run on the engine purchased from NZ.  Tony Muller & his team have done an excellent job on the engine reassembly programme.

Our mid upper turret has been extensively rewired, repaired & tested.  It is now mobile under it's own power.  The perspex dome requires cleaning & fitting prior to public viewing.