Well, the month of May is over and another successful Open House was had. We estimate that between 700 and 800 people come through the hangar on Sunday the 22nd. Unfortunately, the weather gods were not kind and due to the rain and wind we were unable to have some of our exterior displays. We had planned on having Heritage Museum vehicles, the local English car club and our Museum Vampire on display. However, I believe that those that came had an enjoyable time and were able to see how far we had come in the previous year. I would like to thank those who took the time to support us financially as well. Thanks to their generosity we managed to raise a little over $4,000 over the weekend!

During our Open House, we had two items being raffled off. One was a 3 dimensional Spitfire Cutaway which had been donated by Unlimited Details. This item was won by Mr. Saager from Black Creek.

Spitfire Cutaway winner Mr. Saager.

We also raffled off a print by Gordon Pyn entitled "Touché". This is the same print we have available on our website. This print showcases an altercation between 442 Squadron's Y2K Spitfire flown by F/L Roseland and an FW-190 on 30 June 1944. Mr. Rushton of Courtenay is now the proud owner of this print. For those of you who wish to help the project and would like to purchase a copy of the "Touché" print. we have 20 unframed copies at the hangar that now have signatures of 4 different Spitfire Pilots. If we have other pilots come in we will also ask them to sign as well.

Gordon Pyn print winner Mr. Rushton.

On May 27th we had a special visitor to the hangar, Mr. Charley Fox, DFC with bar. Mr. Fox is credited with strafing Rommel's Staff car on 17 July 1944. A writeup of this account can be viewed at the Spitfire Emporium Web Site We had an interesting time with him and wish him all the best in the coming years.

Mr. Charley Fox

During the first two weeks of May we managed to get some work done on the Empennage. At this time our Empennage has the majority of the ribs and stiffeners inserted. We still need to do some more work on these items before we start fitting skin panels. One of the items we need prior to installing the skin panels is the Rudder Trimmer Jack. If anybody out there knows where we can locate one of these rudder trimmer jacks please contact us. If you have one available as a temporary loaner so that we can duplicate it this would also be appreciated.

Empennage - May 15th

For the future we plan on giving our fuselage one coat of paint typical of the camouflage pattern of the day and then preparing the fuselage for display at the 19 Wing Air Show on August 7th, 2005. This will be one of the last work items prior to the summer. Due to financial constraints we will be taking the summer off to raise funds so that hopefully by mid-October we can go back to work for at least the winter time period. Therefore, during the summer even though we will be open on Saturdays we will not have a lot of work progression to show. However, we still welcome visitors to come by and view the project and talk to the volunteers. We will still have T-shirts, hats, decals, pins and Robert Taylor print raffle tickets for sale.

As always, thank you for viewing our project, and please if you are aware of parts, manuals, blueprints please email us. We welcome all the support we can get.

On behalf of the Comox Air Force Museum and the Y2K Spitfire Volunteers, please have a wonderful and safe Summer.