So the Dakota could easily have been the Douglas Delaware. It’s probably familiarity but I think Dakota sounds better. 🙂

The system again, naval fighters were named after marine birds, Fulmar, Skua, Roc, bombers after fish, Barracuda, Tarpon…

I completely agree with PhantomII.
Supermarine are important solely because of the Spitfire. Production numbers are gigantic compared to any other British aircraft, but it was the only really successful design they produced. Apart from winning, the Schneider Trophy machines mattered in what Mitchell learned from them but were otherwise a dead end. Their inter-war flying boats were fine, but not significantly better than the contemporary Short and Saro designs. Despite Joe Smith’s undoubted prowess in developing the Spitfire after Mitchell’s death, I’ve never subscribed to the opinion that he was a great, or even good, designer. The Attacker, Swift and Scimitar were not exactly good or successful aircraft and all had a very short service life.

The costs for the original design were in one of the magazines some years ago but I’ve no chance of finding them now. From memory it was something like half the cost of what was built.

The project in the pictures Kev posted gave 14,300 square metres of display space, what was built is “over 8,000 square metres”.

From the RAF Museum’s website describing the proposed new structure:

“In keeping with Cosford’s hi-tech ethos and its prime location on the Wolverhampton – Telford High Technology Corridor, the main building is being planned to incorporate what will be Europe’s largest solar roof . This will enable the building to produce more non-fossil fuel power than the Museum currently consumes.”

That sounds a good idea with the current drive to renewable energy sources. The surplus was to go into the National Grid. However, it wasn’t built.

So we’ve got around double the cost, just over half the area originally designed and no low cost energy.

Brilliant.

XP294 is privately owned and nothing to do with the Navy.

http://www.dehavillandaviation.com/

There is no such thing as a good pint of John Smith’s, the stuff is bordering on poisonous.

I was talking to a pub landlord in Scarborough a year or so back and he said he kept it for people who didn’t like beer.