Friday was suppose to be spent at the Imperial War Museum but our bus never turned up. It was however a lovely day so I and a friend started walking along Oxford Street instead, turned south at Marble Arch and accidentally…
…came across this; the “Bomber Command Memorial” close to Wellington Arch.
This memorial is dedicated to the second world war airmen who served in RAF bomber command.
The statues of a bomber crew are very moving, the crew members all express different emotions and we stayed here in silence for a while. As we continued walking we realized Imperial War Museum was still a bit away but instead we were fairly close to Science Museum.
I was here as a teenager, many years ago, but Science Museum today is something quite different from what I remember. Above is a German Fokker EIII from 1916. The Science Museum covers a lot of areas of course. We focused on the aviation part but on our way walked through other areas. There was a very interesting exhibition on Churchill’s scentists and we also passed through an impressive exhibition on space with a section on early German experiments.
Here is a WWI fighter SE 5 that was used for sky-writing in the 1920’s.
This is the Vickers Vimy that John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown used on the very first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1919.
Just imagine sitting in this open cockpit for more than 16 hours over the Atlantic!
The beautiful Supermarine S6 racing seaplane was an inportant part of a technical development that lead to the creation of the Spitfire fighter.
Of course this museum is having a Hurricane and behind it is a Spitfire.
If you miss any aircraft here you will probably find a model of it. There are a row of these showcases full of model aircraft.
A Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket powered fighter aircraft. It was extremely fast but not a successful fighter.
The Hawker P.1127 from 1960. The aircraft here is the first prototype and was used for experimental flying leading to the development of the successful Harrier series.
We had a short but very nice visit at the Science Museum. It is well worth a visit!
