I was there last month, and as others have said it’s a wonderful collection. Most of the exhibits are upstairs in the main Flight gallery, although there’s a Lockheed Electra, Avro 504, R-R Flying Bedstead and Shorts SC.1 in the “Making the Modern World” exhibition a floor or two down. The SC.1 is mounted vertically against a pillar minus undercarriage and one wing, not to everyone’s taste!

Only drawback for me was a kiddies interactive display at one end of the Flight gallery that makes an irritating “Ding!” every five seconds. Drives you potty after a minute or two! I think it was only temporary, I hope it’s been removed.

The racks of aero-engines are also worth a close look, some unique examples are on display.

For those perhaps unaware, it’s worth pointing out that even if the RAFM Vimy is moved, there is still another Vimy in London in the shape of Alcock & Brown’s machine in the Science Museum. All three of the UK’s Vimys are presently relatively bunched up in the south east in Kensington, Hendon and Brooklands, so if one were to be displayed a little bit further afield it would perhaps not be such a bad thing.

I have to agree that it would be good if the RAFM could keep all the Sopwith types together, it’s surely the only place in the world where such a thing is possible.

Regards the Japanese types in the second set, the first one could be a Ki-48 “Lilly” but the more I look at it the more it looks like a Ki-45 “Nick”. The second is definitely some sort of Oscar.

Edited in the light of Graham’s post below.

Further to above links, there was a lovely air-to-air photo published in Aeroplane at the time, which shows her still wearing the 1945-style upper wing roundels and with the spinner still in red. Just thought I’d mention it as a slightly more colourful option.

Being slightly pedantic, these are Great T1ts rather than Blue. Cue an entire raft of puns…

Great pictures!

Hi Charlie,

I have to come back to the thing about bottom lines again, sorry if I’m sounding like a stuck record! My basic point is this: When someone reaches their conclusion, it’s a conclusion and they stop. My point is that there is just a possibility of something beyond our understanding and that we ought to leave space in our reasoning for it. It doesn’t make sense to me to shut out the possibility given how infinite the possibilities might be.

Certainly atheism seems very sensible in a worldly way, and it may well be true. I have to say I think your view of atheism as “passive” isn’t accurate in all cases, I’ve met some very zealous atheists who go out of their way to be “atheist, so there!”. These are the people I’m talking about when I say that atheists can be just as bad as the religious.

What you say proves my point Charlie, that is to say that the Atheists have ‘decided’ already that they don’t need to think about it. This is exactly the same as a religious person saying that they’ve ‘decided’ and don’t need to think about it.

I realise at the end of the day that it’s just my opinion but I just don’t see how anyone can say they’ve arrived at a certain conclusion about a potentially limitless Being.

As for my being Agnostic, I’ve never considered myself so but perhaps you’re right. I don’t really like to call my position anything as that suggests I’ve arrived at a fixed point.