Hendon chaos

RE: Hendon chaos

Yeah, it does seem odd on the face of it. IIRC, Cosford have recently performed a number of exhibit swaps with Hendon, but I can’t for the life of me remember what went from Cosford in return for the Hind.

RE: Display boards

With all the static displays available (and Hendon should take a lead), Museums should allow the public to look inside (not just their cockpit) their exhibits i.e. show more imagination!

The Sunderland exhibit for the enthusiast who is too young/never flown this type of plane is absolutely fascinating.

Last year I took my 6 year old son to Cosford, including and overnight stay, and what inspired his interest was the ‘walk-through’ exhibits – Canbarra and Vulcan (?) not just the planes we camped under – although his dad thought it was fantastic!

RE: Hendon chaos

Thats odd, you would think it was crucial in the biplane collection?

RE: Hendon chaos

I heard the other day that the Afghan Hind has been moved to Cosford, and is being readied for display there. 🙂

RE: Display boards

The thing is, my wife could be considered as a ‘general tourist’, and she thought the info boards were poor too!

I agree that the ‘Our Finest Hour’ presentation is superb though, I’d love to see something like that set up in the Bomber Hall if they could too. And yes, the Sunderland is brilliant-I could hang around in there all day! It’s a shame you can’t see more of the upper deck area, as I had the pleasure to do in the years before it was opened to the public, as the radio area and flight deck are brilliant, too.

The lighting IS very dark in the BoB hall now though-half of them appeared to be simply switched off-I wasn’t sure if it was to do with the ‘Finest Hour’ thing, or to do with keeping the electric bill down a bit!!!

RE: Display boards

During my last visit before xmas I thought the BoB display was great and the Sunderland walk-through was fascinating.

However, it was all rather dark.

I get to Cosford more often and that is brilliant!

In terms of notice boards – please remember the Museum needs not just us aero buffs but the general tourist so they need to reflect their needs. Maybe two Guide Books – one for the tourist and one for the the ‘expert’?

RE: Display boards

Theres so much more they could do but imagination just isnt the RAFs point. I’m glad to see more airframes with canopys open and engines uncovered.

RE: Display boards

There should definitely be more information about the particular aircraft on display at Hendon, rather than just basic type info.

Also, the last time I went was with my wife, who’d never been before-the first thing she said about the boards was that they should have photos of the inside of the planes on, and I thought that was a brilliant idea-how about you guys?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the place, but for all their claims of making the place more up to date and ‘interactive’, it’s taking a hell of a long time for any real changes to present themselves! One sit-in Jet Provast, a walk-through Sunderland and a fair-ground style Tornado ‘simulator’ don’t ammount to a lot of ‘interactivity’ for a day out, do they? How about a hands on Spit control grip/panel, or even a sit-in fuselage section?

RE: Display boards

so basicly anything rather than what we have. Allthough you cant win cos a big board will block the view and a small board wont get enough on it!

RE: Hendon chaos

Thanks Ashley, that’s food for thought. Having read through it the criteria, I might just put an application in. It’s got to be more satisfying than what I’m doing now… 😉

Display boards

How about adding, to Ashley’s list:

9) Well-known aviators or other personalities who’ve flown or are associated with the type;
10) Well-known formations, units, forces or airlines that operated the type; and
11) Popular books, movies or TV programmes that featured the type?

With a nod to Steve’s point about not overloading a display, how practical would it be to have summary information on the display board, and slightly more detailed information on an available-for-the-asking two- or four-page pamphlet for each aircraft on display? (Or is that something too few people would want to be bothered to collect?)

Also (just a question), how expensive would it be to convert all the old display boards into LCD flat-screens, so that the display can be animated … maybe set to switch periodically between the information Ashley suggests, and video clips of the aircraft in flight / action, views from the cockpit, interviews with designers and pilots? There’d be a high initial outlay, obviously; but it’d be easy to update and change; and there’d be huge scope for adding multimedia content.

(Yeah, yeah; when I’m a millionaire and have my own collection … )

Regards,

Snoopy

RE: Hendon chaos

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 19-03-02 AT 09:42 AM (GMT)]Steve…you could always apply for the Head of Airfield Services job…;)

http://www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/job_vacancies/index.htm

RE: Hendon chaos

Nice one Damien! Speaking from experience, I think? 😉

RE: Hendon chaos

Caption boards tend to vary between almost every museum that I’ve visited, but the Duxford ones do tend to be amongst the most informative I’ve seen.

I think the list that Ashley describes is about right. I also think that it probably contains the maximum information that you could put onto a board without it becoming a bit too exhaustive. Unfortunately we’re living in an age where skim-reading has become commonplace, and so adding anything more than that may turn people off. Joe Public would glance at it, think that it would be too much effort to read it all, and then move on without taking the time to read and learn, and that’s an education opportunity lost.

One thing I have noticed, I think it was in Hangar 4’s Defence of Britain exhibition, is the use of alternative media; the screens showing clips from “The Battle of Britain” and newsreels, and also the telephone handsets through which people can listen to pilot accounts of the Battle.

This surely is an indication of the way forward for our museums, in that we sometimes forget that members of the public have (in most cases) all five senses available to them. Surely we’ve all used at least four of them in relation to aircraft – SEE and HEAR a Spitfire flying, FEEL the cold steel of the B-17’s guns in the American Air Museum, SMELL the oil and fuel in The Fighter Collection’s hangar. Although I don’t recommend tasting AvGas. 😉

Interactive exhibits are also a huge opportunity, ask any child coming away from a school trip what they liked most about Duxford, and they’ll tell you “Going on Concorde”. Okay, so they haven’t flown on it, but they’ll tell their parents and friends that they walked through one of the most famous airliners ever built. It’s a memory. And from memories, we learn.

Cor. I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about. Now why the hell didn’t I apply for that Exhibitions Manager job at Duxford six months ago…? 🙂

RE: Hendon chaos

At Duxford, we have two main different types of caption boards, as I am sure some of you are aware…there are the old style big heavy white boards with black and white pictures and limited information about each individual aircraft and the aircraft type…and then there are the colour boards as appear in the AAM and Battle of Britain Exhibition in Hanger 4…

Out of interest, what would you all like to see on a caption board? To me, an ideal caption board would have:

1) A colour picture of that particular aircraft
2) A period black/white or color picture of that aircraft type
3) A short history of the type
4) A short history of that individual aircraft e.g squadron, bases, pilots, crew etc
5) Current owner and how it came to be in their hands
6) Technical information e.g engine, wingspan, etc etc
7) Any interesting facts about that particular aircraft
8) Translations of text into at least French and German

Anything else anyone can think of?

RE: Hendon chaos

Rather lacking…..
That’s very diplomatic……absolute bleedin disgrace would be nearer the truth.
In this day and age, there is no excuse for any museum of any kind to have info details relating to exhibits being too brief/inaccurate/badly sited/poorly worded/non-multi-lingual etc.,etc.

It’s not rocket science……..

RE: Hendon chaos

When I went last year the place seemed fine but of course, Hendon is always changing and even more so now that the new building is due next year. I agree though that their info boards have always been rather lacking!