| If you're an aviation
enthusiast who is visiting England, then the Imperial War Museum at Duxford
should definitely be high on your list of places to visit.
If your Significant Other will only let you visit one aviation museum then
you're probably better off going to the Royal
Air Force museum at Hendon, which is conveniently located in North
London and has a somewhat superior collection of aircraft.
However, if you have the time to get up to Duxford, which is near Cambridge,
then not only can you visit Cambridge, but if you time things right then
you can visit the Imperial War Museum and see one
of the airshows at Duxford.
Duxford has an excellent
selection of aircraft, including quite a few which you won't see at Hendon;
however, Hendon definitely has better facilities than Duxford.
It's true that Duxford has the purpose-build and award-winning American
Air Museum, which contains about the best selection of world war two and
later American military aircraft that you'll see outside America.
However, the other main hangars are rather cramped and some of them are
definitely showing their age; and sadly quite a few large historic aircraft
are kept outside, exposed to the elements.
At the time I visited,
there were around 180 aircraft spread around the different hangars.
Apart from the American collection, there are some British piston-powered
and jet-powered airliners, including the first jet airliner, the Comet,
and an early test model Concorde, which you can walk through.
There's also a good selection of early
British military jets. There are German world-war two aircraft
like a Messerschmitt Bf109, a Junkers Ju-52 and a Fieseler Storch.
Finally there are weapons, such as Barnes-Wallis' bouncing bomb used during
the famous "dam busters" raids in the Ruhr valley, and a German Fritz-X
radio-controlled bomb, predecessor to modern smart bombs. |
