Europe Trip #6: RAF Museum Hendon - 1 - Introduction

Well, I'm back home in New Zealand now, and with the lasting effects of long distance travel almost gone, it's time to catch up on the photos form the trip.

This post is the first in a series of photos taken at the RAF Museum in Hendon. As you'll see over the next few days as I put the posts up, there was plenty here to keep me amused for the 5-6 hours I was there, and in fact it would have been better to spend a couple of days so that I didn't have to rush between some of the exhibits! After all my looking around, I didn't even get in to the hanger containing many of the WW1 exhibits which is a shame.

Getting to the the museum is super easy. The London Underground takes you very close - about a 10 minute, well sign-posted, walk to the museum after you get off the train. Entry to the museum is FREE [very surprising these days!], and even if I had had to pay it would have been worth it.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings and on to the pictures! The two gate guardians are fibreglass replicas of a Hawker Hurricane Mk II and a Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX. The museum [and apparently the RAF] use replicas for gate guardians to preserve the original aircraft in good condition. A good idea I think.

Following these are a quick taste of what is to come:

Hawker Tempest II
Westland Whirlwind HAR10
BAC Jet Provost T.5A
Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S2B
Heinkel He 162