I don't know which group I saw the subject in so I'm responding to all three I could think of. This is from the Aero-News Network, a snippet from a longer article about an effort to build operational replicas of pre-WW2 Russian planes...
...as previously reported in Aero-News, a fire ignited by a welder destroyed a building
>at the Air Forces Museum at Monino that was home to a collection of 20th Century
>aero engines, and worse, contained tens of thousands of irreplaceable documents.
>The best the firefighters could do was keep the damage contained to that single building.
Stephen "FPilot" Bierce/IPMS #35922 {Sig Quotes Removed on Request}
I was there a week ago last Sunday - and all is not lost.
We were told the day before our group visit that there had been a fire - and that our visit may be cancelled - but it wasn't.
When we arrived we were dismayed to see that there was a large panelled fence in front of the museum - and what looked like the skeleton of the hangar rising above it.
Closer inspection revealed that this skeleton was in fact the metal girders of a NEW hangar being built on the site of the old one - and it was a spark from a welders torch that had caused the fire in one of the old hangars.
The museum curator told us that they had lost some precious artifacts - engines, models, documents etc from the very early (late 1800's - 1917 era) exhibition hangars - but that the rest of the collection was OK.
The billboard in front of the metal skeleton had an artists impression of the new buildings - all glass & steel - due to be opened in November!!!
I wish I had taken a photos of all this new work - I don't know what came over me!!
All the aircraft from these rebuilt hangars are either out on display - or in the larger display hangars over the other side.
There is some money going into Monino - which is good from the preservation point of view, but bad from our enthusiasts standpoint !!
The pathways betwen the aircraft exhibits in the 'park' have been re-surfaced and a low chain-link fence has been put in place.
This stops the punters from going on the grass - but the museum staff did not seem to mind when we stepped over the fence and got amongst the exhibits - as we had always done in previous years.
I suspect though that things will get tighter in future !!!! I can see us having to stick to the pathways.
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