Relaxing

Just going to relax today. Also need to organise my email account. I have too many messages that I don't need to keep.

Planning on going to the Brunel Museum tomorrow.

Helicopter Museum and Stars of Time

Very out of the way place to have an event but it was quite good being able to see the museum and event for just 10 pounds.

The  museum is a charity.

A good collection of Helicopters.

Got an autograph from Chris Barrie (Red Dwarf). These sort of small events have a much more relaxed attitude on taking photos as you get autographs.

More Helicopters.

The Doctor Who Exhibits are just mixed in with the Helicopter exhibits

This was one of the best Dalek's I have seen. It was radio controlled and the tentacles move as well. It was a really excellent piece of work.

Another Dalek

More Doctor Who Exhibits

This is one of the first Radio controlled military helicopters. The design of the two contra rotating rotors to avoid the need of a tail rotor.

The whole unit and it control unit could be carried in a Land Rover.

And finally some ghostbusters.

And the weather actually changed into what is expected of England. That is rain. I am glad I packed a rain coat into my bag on the day.

Planning for the next few days.

Just booking rail tickets to go to a small SF convention at Weston-Super-Mare which is 2:30 hours train trip from London. It is about halfway between London and Cardiff.

It is at a Helicopter Museum. There are a few autographs I can collect as well as see the museum. It is on over two days but I plan on going to Saturday only.

RAF Museum

Off to the RAF Museum today. They don't open till 10am and it is a 25 minute train ride.

The train ride starts out as Underground and then becomes overground surface. Just a short 10 minute walk from the train to the museum. Could have taken the bus but they only run every 10 minutes so it was quicker to walks than wait for the bus.

The museum has a large collection of aircraft.

These are examples of the first two jet fighters that were built. The German ME-262 and British Gloster Meteor.

The Mosquito was used for light bombing mission and photo recon during the war. It is made of plywood. I remembered that my Wood working teacher at high school talked about these as he worked on the production line during the war.

A panoramic view of the one of the display buildings.

I have always watched footage of inflight refueling of aircraft and this is an early version of that equipment.

An early version of a british ground controlled approach equipment.

It is amazing that in just on a hundred years we have moved from aircraft built of wood with fabric covering to aircraft like the A380 which would fill most of the exhibit space. They couldn't get one to exhibit as this facility does not have a runway so aircraft have to come in by road and rail.

A selection of the helicopter's that are on display at the RAF museum.

An interesting sign inside the Chinook.

The Vulcan bomber that was built at the height of the cold war to bomb Russia.

Here it is with the conventional weapons that could be carried with a manequin as an example of the size of the aircraft.

This is the open bomb doors of the aircraft.

Some exteriors of the Museum. The two fighters are fibreglass replica's to avoid damage to actual aircraft.