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Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 5:15 pm
by 603DX
The Shoreham Aircraft Museum is in the Kent village of Shoreham, nestling in the beautiful Darent Valley. No connection at all to the airport at Shoreham, West Sussex.

Many of the exhibits were recovered by local aviation groups, from known crash locations during the Battle of Britain period, when large numbers of Luftwaffe and RAF aircraft were shot down along the River Darent Valley. There is also a chalk board bearing the signatures of several well-known RAF pilots, on loan from the famous "White Hart" pub near Biggin Hill. Al Deere, "Screwball" Beurling, and Brian Kingcombe are among the names included.

http://www.shoreham-aircraft-museum.co.uk

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 7:23 pm
by 4mastacker
I would like to add this wonderful place.

The de Havilland Museum

Just off the M25 at London Colney and well worth a visit. I paid an unscheduled visit last year when my car started playing up just as I was approaching J22 and I needed to let the engine cool down. Brilliant museum with a very friendly crew.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 2:29 pm
by 603DX
I support 4mastacker's recommendation above, for the London Colney de Havilland Museum. I have visited there at least twice in recent years, and found it to be particularly engrossing. The close proximity to the Salisbury Hall property, from the adjacent unprepared fields of which the first Mosquito prototypes took off, makes the museum's location pretty unique.

Two points of interest for me: I purchased a splendid print in the shop, titled "Mosquito. The Wooden Wonder of Salisbury Hall", by Robert Tomlin, at a reasonable price. Signed by John "Cat's Eyes" Cunningham no less, who was very familiar with the Mossy, and was actually based at RAF West Malling in Kent during WW2, just a few miles from my home as a young toddler, keen on aircraft even then!

And also, there is/was a complete family tree on display of the de Havilland family, including Geoffrey and Olivia, who of course was a major star of the famous movie "Gone With the Wind". She and other family members had close connections with the island of Guernsey, and despite her fairly advanced years, she returned to the island from the USA to take a prominent part in a commemorative parade around the island's roads. My own family connections with Guernsey made that of special interest to me.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 3:14 pm
by Capetonian
My own family connections with Guernsey made that of special interest to me.
Coincidentally I am sitting in St Peter Port as I read this!

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 4:49 pm
by izod tester
It is, or was, possible to meet Blacksheep at the de Havilland museum. He certainly used to be a volunteer there.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 5:23 pm
by G-CPTN
izod tester wrote:
Fri May 17, 2019 4:49 pm
It is, or was, possible to meet Blacksheep at the de Havilland museum. He certainly used to be a volunteer there.
I have been to the DH museum four times without meeting Blacksheep.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 4:47 pm
by 603DX
Further to my post #21 above, I've now found the full list of all signatures chalked on that former blackout screen. In addition to the three I recalled from memory, here are a few more, several of them rather unexpected!

S/L Neville Duke (later the famous test pilot)
S/L Tony Bartley (married to the beautiful actress Deborah Kerr)
G/Cpt 'Sailor' Malan
W/Cdr Geoffrey Page
W/Cdr Stanford Tuck
M/RAF The Lord Tedder (!)
S/L Jan Zurakowski (later the well known Meteor test pilot)
W/Cdr Paddy Barthrop
W/Cdr 'Grubby' Grice (the C.O. of Biggin Hill)

I spent quite a while, studying those illustrious names on the prominently displayed board ... ^:)^

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 10:14 pm
by G-CPTN
On a point of order, were the signatures effected when the subjects were of lower rank rather than what they later achieved?

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 10:20 am
by 603DX
G-CPTN wrote:
Sat May 18, 2019 10:14 pm
On a point of order, were the signatures effected when the subjects were of lower rank rather than what they later achieved?
No way of telling, as far as I know.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 10:39 am
by G-CPTN
603DX wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 10:20 am
G-CPTN wrote:
Sat May 18, 2019 10:14 pm
On a point of order, were the signatures effected when the subjects were of lower rank rather than what they later achieved?
No way of telling, as far as I know.
I presume that the signatures were simply their 'civilian' names and not accompanied by their military rank.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 11:22 am
by 603DX
G-CPTN wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 10:39 am
603DX wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 10:20 am
G-CPTN wrote:
Sat May 18, 2019 10:14 pm
On a point of order, were the signatures effected when the subjects were of lower rank rather than what they later achieved?
No way of telling, as far as I know.
I presume that the signatures were simply their 'civilian' names and not accompanied by their military rank.
If you click on the museum link I gave in post #21, the framed board is the last image on it, with the RAF Ensign to its left, which came from the original chapel at Biggin Hill. As you presumed, all signatures on it are their 'civilian' names without ranks given. "Al" Deere's and Brian Kingcombe's signatures are prominently visible half-way down, towards the left, and "Screwball" Beurling's is fourth below Kingcombe's, but a bit fainter. After the war the preserved board was unveiled by "Sailor" Malan at the White Hart, from which it was transferred to the Shoreham museum. A full list of names, ranks, military decorations and squadrons is available there, from my copy of which I was quoting. Clearly, someone has done a lot of research to produce all this!

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:53 pm
by Stoneboat

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:25 am
by Capetonian
Thanks for that Stoneboat.

The Viscount was the UK's most commercially successful airliner, with 444 built (some sources vary that number slightly.) It operated all over the world on short/medium haul routes and was loved by passengers because of the large windows, the largest on any commercial airliner, and the smoothness of the RR Dart engines, which had no reciprocating parts. It flew low and slow, so the views from those picture windows were superb. Some of my fondest memories are cruising at 15000 feet over the mountains and lakes of Rhodesia and South Africa on the 'milk runs' they operated, a circular route Salisbury-Kariba-Wankie-Vic Falls-Salisbury if I remember correctly, but it may also have gone to the midlands and included Fort Victoria and Buffalo Range.

There is a Viscount 806 (G-APIM) at Brooklands Museum which is open to the public. In one of the showcases there are two old threepenny pieces. One of Vickers sales points was that the aircraft was so smooth that you could stand one on its side in flight and it wouldn't fall over.

Tragically, Air Rhodesia had two of its Viscounts, carrying civilians, shot down by the barbarian savages who were the predecessors to the regime who have destroyed what was one of the finest countries in the world. In the second event, the murderers attacked survivors on the ground. This atrocity was largely ignored by the rest of the world.

This is the recording of the most moving sermon 'The Silence is Deafening' preached Rev. John da Costa, Anglican Dean of Salisbury, on 03 SEP 1978.

Nobody who holds sacred the dignity of human life can be anything but sickened at the events attending the crash of the Viscount Hunyani. Survivors have the greatest call on the sympathy and assistance of every other human being. The horror of the crash was bad enough, but that this should have been compounded by murder of the most savage and treacherous sort leaves us stunned with disbelief and brings revulsion in the minds of anyone deserving the name "human."

This bestiality, worse than anything in recent history, stinks in the nostrils of Heaven. But are we deafened with the voice of protest from nations which call themselves "civilised"? We are not. Like men in the story of the Good Samaritan, they "pass by, on the other side."




More information here :

http://www.vickersviscount.net/Pages_Hi ... 0Down.aspx
http://rhodesianheritage.blogspot.com/2 ... ounts.html

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:57 pm
by k3k3
I visited the Boscombe Down Collection at Old Sarum airfield a couple of weeks ago, lots of interesting exhibits and enthusiastic staff, highly recommended. Unfortunately the website doesn't do it justice.

http://www.boscombedownaviationcollection.co.uk/

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 12:33 pm
by Woody
I’ve just found this one, Groundgripper is close by, haven’t got the nerve to look at prices ^:)^

https://www.spitfiredisplayteam.co.uk/

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:44 pm
by Stoneboat
Yeah Cape, I remember those two shootdowns. The slaughter of the survivors in the second instance barely made the news. Dare mention that today and someone will be along shortly to defend the animals who did it.

I got a bit of stick time on the Viscount. One of the local mining companies operated two at different times. One they bought as a basket case and rebuilt after a F101 got away from the pilot and hit it on the ground. When that one ran out of airframe time for a major inspection they bought a second to replace it. Both were ex Air Canada machines, CF-THA and CF-THQ.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 11:25 am
by sidevalve
The Museum of Amphibians (or Hydravions in yer actual French) at Biscarrosse, SW France has been on my 'to do' list for years.
This Latécoère 521 flying boat was a strange-looking beast - powered by 6 Hispano-Suiza V12 engines, each of 760 hp:


Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 11:59 am
by ian16th
Reading up the Wiki page, I see that they were scrapped at the Étang de Berre, next to Istres during WWII.

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 12:33 pm
by TheGreenGoblin
Given that my old museum going mucker is absent, permanently, without leave, and also that bloody Covid has constrained the idea of visiting aviation museums, I have become a big fan of Peninsular Seniors. Their wonderful US themed aviation videos are a delight for old codgers all over the world! ;)))

https://www.youtube.com/user/PeninsulaSrsVideos

Western Museum of Flight Torrance

Re: Links to Aviation Museums

Posted: Sat May 15, 2021 2:33 pm
by Woody
Hopefully Boris and SAGE don’t put a stop to this :-bd

https://www.lincsaviation.co.uk/store/e ... -423067429