Well, I certainly seem to have struck a chord with my comments.
When first taken as a youngster it was the airframes that grabbed my attention whilst my parents were more interested in the side galleries with their personal histories so the museum was working on two levels thus appealing to a broad audience, closing these galleries may save money but diminishes the attraction as well as ignoring its reason for existance as the job of any museum is primarily one of education.
I saw an example of this on my visit, a group of what looked like 5 year old’s were sitting around the Bristol F2b (clad in their high vis waistcoats) being lectured on aircraft design by what I asssumed was a museum employee. The poor chap was fighting a losing battle to keep their attention as his talk was going way over their heads as he was being way too technical explaining how a helicopters rotors work to generate lift.
What surprised me was the large areas given over to non museum activities, apart from the previously mentioned cafe’ there was a large play area for the younger children to amuse themselves in, this seemed to be the most popular part of the building judging by the numbers of kids using it. I’m not against this sort facility but it just seemed to be overly large and out of place in its current location.
In fact the only people who were interested in the actual exhibits apart from myself were at the retirement end of the age range everyone else was either playing in the play area or in the case of a few teenagers texting on their mobiles. This dosen’t seem to be the case at Duxford where all ages seem genuinely interested in the exhibits.
None of this is necessarily the museums fault but it all contributes to the general atmosphere of the place.
Duxford has play areas and cafe’s but these are kept seperate from the main displays, Hendon has room to do this by using a small part of the car park which was at least 80% empty on my visit.
It really saddens me that one of the great aircraft collections of the world is now a shadow of its former self.
As previous posters have said, I would still recomend anyone to visit who has not yet done so as there are some unique exhibits to be seen I just wish that it was displayed with a bit more care and class the way it used to be.
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