Funding Announced To Safeguard The 'Ultimate Airfix Model Instruction Manual'

The funding will support the cataloguing of the Fairey Aviation Company Archive, a crucial resource underpinning Barracuda Live: The Big Rebuild—NMRN’s decade-long project to reconstruct a complete Fairey Barracuda aircraft to original Second World War factory specifications. 

Founded in 1915 by Sir Charles Richard Fairey, Fairey Aviation produced several iconic aircraft, including the Barracuda and the Swordfish—both critical to the Royal Navy’s Second World War operations. Later innovations saw the company be the first to break the world air speed record with a speed faster than 1,000mph and design the now-iconic ‘droop snoot’ later used on Concorde.  

Led by NMRN with support from the Ministry of Defence, Barracuda Live gathers surviving aircraft parts from crash sites across the British Isles. Each part undergoes a rigorous conservation process to verify authenticity, stabilise condition, and preserve its historical significance. This work is shared through an innovative 'Live Conservation' programme at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Somerset. 

The grant will allow the team to unlock vital technical drawings, development notes, test reports, and design documents buried deep within the Fairey Aviation archive. Of value are original Barracuda schematics—effectively the aircraft’s instruction manual—which will directly guide the reconstruction effort.  

Louisa Blight, Head of Collections and Research at NMRN, says: 

“We are hugely grateful to the Archives Revealed programme for their generous support. For a long time, the Barracuda project has felt like building a life-sized Airfix model—but this funding gives us the instruction manual we’ve been missing. We’re also thankful to our colleagues at the Royal Air Force Museum, whose collaboration has helped us create a unified research collection that honours the pioneers of 20th-century naval aviation.” 

Dr Harry Raffal, Head of Collections and Research at the Royal Air Force Museum who has worked alongside the NMRN team to transfer the archive says: 

“We are delighted to have worked collaboratively with our fellow service museum to enable this transfer to take place. The successful funding application is such good news. The funds will help to unlock this significant aviation archive so that it can be shared with a wider audience and provide further, vital support for the Barracuda restoration project. Projects like Barracuda Live embody the kind of rigorous scholarship and passionate conservation that define both our museums. Together we're ensuring that this extraordinary chapter of British naval aviation is not only rebuilt but re-understood and celebrated for generations to come.” 

Archives Revealed is a partnership programme between The National Archives, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Lottery Heritage Fund which helps unlock collections across the UK and build the skills needed to care for them into the future.  

Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation, says: 

“This programme is partnership working at its best. We are delighted to see 16 cataloguing grants awarded across the UK through this latest round of the Archives Revealed partnership programme. These awards open up rich and wide-ranging archival collections from different communities, expand access and deepen understanding of the stories they hold. Congratulations to all new grant holders.”