Brooklands Trust Members Forum

Concorde on the Move !

2011-01-17T22:21:33Z

Last weekend saw Concorde move from its normal posiotion so that a trench could be dug across the tarmac to lay services for the enw Bus Museum.

This meant that you caould take some photos of Concorde without the steps attached for the first time in qute a while.

So here’s a couple of photos - by the way it is back in position again today and the stairs are back - so sorry if you wanted to come down and see it unattached !

Swift new Arrival

2011-02-03T17:19:09Z

This fuselage turned up at the Musuem today and currently sits outside of the paddock.

It is the record breaking supermarine Swift WK198 piloted by Mike Lithgow to the absolute speed record of 753.7mph at Castel Idris, Libya on 26th Sept 1953 beating the record held by the Hawker Hunter. Prior to this on 9th July 1953 it had been flown by Mike from London to Paris in 19m,in 5sec, a point to point record. It was the last British production aircraft to hold this record. So it has an important pedigree but still ended up in a scrapyard in 1958 after leaving active service. The wings were scrapped but the fuselage survived until 1981 whne members of the North East Air Museum spotted it on an ad hoc visit to the scrapyard. Realising it’s pedigree they reached an agreement with the owners to display it. It moved to RAF MIllom in 2008 but that museum has nowclosed and so it has ended up at Brooklands. It was originally built as a Swift F1 but converted in to the F4 prototype in 1953 which is when it carried out it s record breaking.

This is a link to a photo on an external website of WK198 in the scrapyard of unimetal scrap dealers in Failsworth, Manchester -

The Last Helicopter ?

2010-08-16T21:18:03Z

This is scheduled to be the last helicopter landing on the helipad at Brooklands….unless an unplanned one comes in during the nexct couple of weeks !

It landed this morning where the lady pilot had a meeting with Julian Temple at the Museum. The end of an era.

Future landings are planned for the airstrip on Mercedes Benz World.

The helipad site is actually a huge rubbish dump which was levelled when the Museum came into existence to provide a suitable platform for helicopter landings. It is now due for complete demolition to bring the ground level back to it’s pre war level and the building of the Cobham London Transport Bus Museum.

You can read how that is going along in another thread under Brooklands Banter.

Oh and the airccraft is a Robinson R44 Raven II for those recording Brooklands history.

A bit of rearrangement

2010-06-29T23:03:26Z

It’s not often that the hanger gets rearranged. So here’s a couple of shots of just that very thing happening today. The main points being that teh Harrier has now gone to the back where the Hurricane used to eb and the Hurricane moved to the front. The idea being to keep the aircraft that run near the doors so they can be moved outside and fired up on appropriate occasions.

1) Crossed Tail Planes
2) Shifting the Harrier
3) Wide open spaces - the hanger gets a good sweeping courtesy of Kai
4) An aircraft park outside the clubhouse
5) The Hurricane finally sees the light of day again

Mystery Powerplants

2010-01-18T15:36:54Z

Hi all, hope someone out there can help. Attached are three photographs illustrating what appear to be two engines of some sort. I’m guessing aero because of the apparent size and light weight. Any help at all with identification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The Killing of the TSR2

2010-01-06T11:04:18Z

As everyone is snowed it you might like to tune in to Radio 4 on Thursday (7th Jan) at 2,15pm for a Radio Play entitled the Killing of the TSR2.

Here’s the BBC blurb

“By Robin Brooks. The true story of the struggle to build TSR2, the British-built world-beating fighter jet that never was. Years ahead of its time technologically, it was scrapped by the Labour government in 1965, after just one supersonic test flight.”

More info at:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pl1gx

Wing Swap

2009-11-11T23:39:14Z

The RAF popped in today to claim the wing of the Kestrel/Harrier back. Luckily they brought another with them which was the correct wing for the aircraft to swap them over…..here’s a few pics of the wing swap.

Vimy arrival - TOMORROW, Sunday 15th November!

2009-11-14T12:02:23Z

Valerie from the Musuem has just asked me to post this to let you all know. The Vimy will be flying in tomorrow to take up residence at the Museum. Apologies for the lateness of the notification, but the descision was only taken late yesterday. No idea on the time yet, if I find out, I will let you know.

Amelia Earhart.

2009-11-21T21:37:23Z

Dear all,

Recently inherited “Soaring Wings” by Geoge Palmer Putnam. A biography of Ameila Earhart.

Amelia Earhart visited England. Did she come to Brooklands, does anyone know?

NickB

Air Strip Testing - this week

2009-10-09T12:23:18Z

The Museum is hoping to fly a Piper Cub into the new Air Strip at MBW in the next few days to test out its suitability for aircraft take off and landing. Hopefully this will herald the way for some fly ins next year ! So if you’re local keep an eye out for it.