De Havilland and Brooklands Museums.

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Thanks chaps, glad you like them.

Moving outdoors to the aircraft park, and a few of the (mainly) Vickers products, mostly built at Brooklands, or the enlarged Weybridge plant next door.


PIC 1. Concorde.
PIC 2. ex-RAF Jetstream.
PIC 3. Vickers VC10 (VC = Vickers Commercial), formerly the Sultan of Oman's aircraft, built at Weybridge. Still an impressive size, even by today's standards.
PICS 4 and 5. BAC 1-11, this one used for Fly by Light Control testing.
PICS 6 and 7. Vickers Viscount, one of Britain's best exports, and a delight to fly in.
PIC 8. Cockpit section of another Viscount, this one being ex- Royal Aircraft Establishment.
PIC 9. Vickers 'Merchantman', a 'Vanguard' converted to freight use. This example first flew in 1961, entering service with BEA. It was converted to freight configuration in 1969/70, and eventually retired in September 1996. Donated to the museum, it actually flew into Weybridge, on a very short remaining stretch of the runway, actually touching down on the grass at the threshold, stradlling some deep holes where trees had been up-rooted to provide approach clearance !!
The scaffolding is in place for exterior renovation.
PIC 10. Vickers VC1 'Viking', awaiting restored engines. This was an intermediate short-haul airliner, more or less a stop-gap' before the arrival of such turbo-prop types as the Viscount. It used the wing and undercart design of the Wellington, and a military version, the Valletta, served as a para-dropping, freight, and navigational / radio trainer.

More to come soon.


 
Excellent. I remember almost all of those types flying over my head when I was a lad, having grown up just about 5 miles and in line with runway 27 in Toronto . The VC-10 take-offs were ear busters!
 
Thanks Andy and Wojtek.
Love the VC10 - still majestic. Did a long flight on a RAF VC10, to Ghana via Dakar, and back, being dragged backwards through the night sky - but very smoothly.

And now for something completely different ...........................

Barnes Wallis had a long connection with Vickers, and Brooklands in particular, designing the Wellesley and Wellington, as well as a range of bombs, among other things. Perhaps less well-known was his involvement with the research and development associated with high-speed, high altitude flight, post war. To this end, he designed, and had Vickers build this huge test chamber, used for atmospheric testing of aircraft sections, and called the Stratosphere Chamber. It was built in 1946 / 47, long before the age of CAD systems, all worked out with slide rule and drawn by hand.

PIC 1. The chamber door, with Karl giving some idea of it's immense size.
PIC 2. The large bogie wheels, running on tracks, moved the entire structure sideways, into the test building.
PIC 3. A view into the cavernous interior of the Stratosphere Chamber, on the opposite side to the previous pics.
PIC 4. One of the engines on display in the test building, the Rolls Royce 'Welland', Britain's first production jet engine.
PICS 5 to 7. More of Barnes Wallis's work, with the Tallboy, Grand Slam and Upkeep weapons, again with Karl giving some scale.
PICS 8 and 9. This Rolls Royce Merlin XX engine was recovered with the substantial remains of a Hurricane MkII from Russia. The Hurricane has now been restored, and will be shown later in the thread.
PICS 10 and 11. A 1/48th scale diorama showing a Lancaster about to receive a Grand Slam bomb.

Back soon with more pics and info.


 
Now on to the remaining section of the original race track, within the Museum grounds.
Much of the banked sections of the circuit still remain to the south, enclosing part of 'Mercedes World' and the retail park, forming a backdrop to the current road layout in the area.


PIC 1. Looking up the slope of the Start / Finish straight, towards the 'Member's Banking', with the original WW2 Belman hangar at left.
PICS 2 and 3. This WW2 air raid shelter, in the hillside at the edge of the track, has been preserved. The hill itself carries the hill test track, still used for hill climb trials.
PIC 4. Looking west along the banked circuit.
PIC 5. Looking east along the banking to the 'Member's Bridge'.
PIC 6. The banking is a lot higher, and steeper, than it looks, as Karl discovered as he climbed the slope.
PIC 7. It's possible I set a new Brooklands Circuit record - for the smallest, slowest vehicle !!! (pic by Karl).
PIC 8. The original 'Shell' pavilion, on the edge of the Start / Finish straight.
PICS 9 to 12. Some visiting classics, gleaming in the sun. Quite a lot of £/$ lined up here. The white fencing in the background marks the edge of the lower section of the test hill.

More pics tomorrow.


 
Thanks Wojtek, Andy and Hugh.

Back to more of the aircraft collection, and the displays in the Flight Shed.
Although spotlessly clean, and well lit, some of the exhibits were tricky to photograph to include the complete airframe, due to the positioning, but access for viewing was otherwise fine. Again, friendly and helpful volunteers were on duty, and we noticed that one of them, at least, had the time, and patience, to apparently describe the function of every switch and button to the visitor sitting in the Harrier !!!

PIC 1. Beautiful Hawker Fury, working replica, with former R.Dan.AF. Hunter F.51 behind
PICS 2 and 3. Restored Hurricane Mk.IIA, Z2389, built in 1940 at Kingston upon Thames, in the markings of 71 (Eagle) Sqn, RAF, one of five Squadrons it served with before being sent to Russia in May 1942.
It then served with 767 Regiment, Red Air Force on the Kola Peninsula. On 20th June 1942 over a remote area of Murmansk, when flown by F/Lt Ivan Kalashnikov, it engaged two Bf109Fs and five Bf110's, but was shot down and force landed. The pilot survived.
The remains of the aircraft were discovered in the mid 1990's, and partly restored, when it moved to Brooklands in October 1997. Further restoration commenced in 1999, with the engine now about ready for ground running. The original engine, recovered at the same time as the airframe, was shown earlier in this thread.
PICS 4 and 5. Harrier T.Mk.52, the first two-seat trainer built, used as a demonstration aircraft. Access to the aircraft's cockpit is free. Note the civil registration.
PICS 6 to 8. Avro 504, displayed as an aircraft used at Brooklands.

More tomorrow ..............


 
Be good to see you over here Buff, and no doubt a few of us will be meeting up next year, as it's the 80th anniversary of the BoB.
Glad you're all enjoying the pics, and I can confirm that Brooklands is well worth a visit, a heaven for aircraft and auto fans !

Back to some of the car collections in the next two or three posts, before moving back to the aircraft collection, and the 'Loch Ness' Wellington in particular.
I'll start off with this monster, and I make no apologies for the number of pics. It takes a lot to impress me, but the sheer size, and the exquisite engineering of this machine really impressed me during our visit.
This is the Napier Railton, commissioned by John Cobb, and built at Brooklands in 1933.
It's powered by a 24 liter, 12 cylinder Napier Lion 'W' 12 aero engine, developing 580 bhp, and holds the all-time lap record for the Brooklands outer circuit, at 143.44 mph, set in 1935. It also holds the 24 hour record at Daytona, at over 156 mph, and has a top speed of 165 mph, driven through a non -synchro 'crash' gearbox.
It was used by GQ Parachutes, in 1951, to test aircraft brake 'chutes !
Due to the available angles, it wasn't possible to photograph the car in its entirety, so I've included a pic of a rather nice, hand-built, large scale model.
The final pic, originally from 'Motorsport' magazine I think, and in the Brooklands collections, shows the car in its heyday, on the banked circuit at Brooklands, with the Member's Bridge in the background. Note all four wheels off the ground !!.

Back later with more cars, and then on to the aircraft exhibits.

 
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