[WWI] My tour of England

[Knut Erik Hagen]

Hei,

I had this years trek to airshows and museums two weeks ago and I hope
a little summary would be of interest to the list members.

Arrived in London on Wednesday morning, dropped off my bag at the hotel
and went to Woolwich Arsenal to visit the "Firepower" museum covering
the history of British and foreign artillery.
Defintely worth a visit, quite a few OT guns and well laid out for
taking pictures.  Two special exhibitions, one of Asian artillery
and another on the cold war.  Currently a bit tricky to get there as
they are building a new light rail link underneath the Thames.
Almost made it to the RAF Museum, but a building nearby was on fire
and some gas tanks blew up when I was on my way from the tube station
to the museum.  Had to take cover due to glowing embers landing 
in the street and could not make it to the museum due to police roadblocks.

On Thursday I went to the tank museum at Bovington.
They did drive some of the tanks on their arena, the oldest a Sherman.
Some reshuffling had been done among the static exhibits
and they have plenty of OT tanks on display.  

On Friday I went to the Museum of Army Flying, they have a Sopwith Pup
placed in a rather cramped and dark corner as well as uniforms and
a an original rudder with the "White Ensign" as national marking.   

In the evening I had the pleasure of being shown around Croydon airport
and dining with Don Ralston - proof of there still being true gentlemen
in England.  I did also get to visit his home where I got to see his
collections of model aircraft and garden sheds, he has his workshop in
one of the latter.

Saturday was spent at Old Warden, the highlight was of course three
Bristol Fighters flying in formation.  The tannoy fell silent when
the trio of RR engines were singing above us, someone behind me 
commented on this "I think the speaker just creamed his pants"...

Sunday to the RIAT with absolutely nothing OT, plenty of heavy metal.

Monday I made it to the IWM and RAF Museums, the latter did for once 
have the Grahame-White hall open so I got to have a look at the WW1 a/c.
Hannants have moved away from the tube station and is located in a group
of workshops som 100m away from the RAFM.  The shop is much larger,
but has less in stock, hardly anything in the way of resins and vacs.

I am still in the process of sorting out about 6Gb of digital images
from the trip, also had to do my offshore survival training last week
which became a bit more realistic than wanted as one of the girls 
there damaged her lungs during helicopter underwater escape training.
 

  Eders
Knut Erik