The Best of British Aviation

June 6, 2016 7:30 AM

The Imperial War Museum Duxford: A look at some of the stars of the UK's largest aviation musuem.
posted by veedubya (12 comments total)

The Duxford Museum has nine historic civilian airliners. You can purchase a ticket and walk through them. See how we have traded off leg room for affordable flying.
posted by diekhans at 8:10 AM on June 6, 2016

This is by Metafilter's own @drgitlin.
posted by evoque at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2016

I went there last year. You can easily spend a full day looking around the Museum. Recommended.
posted by YAMWAK at 9:02 AM on June 6, 2016

I used to live near Duxford. You can easily spend many days exploring it - as I did in the 80s and 90s, and it's clearly got better since. The star pieces are, of course, spectacular, but there's a lot to be said for wandering aroubd and bumping into a V1 on its launch ramp next to a WWII German air defence radar.
posted by Devonian at 9:20 AM on June 6, 2016

Having moved a couch up a set of stairs yesterday, I am terrified and in awe of how many planes are closely packed into that hangar....
posted by schmod at 9:56 AM on June 6, 2016

I read the title as "The Best of Bristish Aversion" and was unreasonably excited.
posted by mcduff at 12:08 PM on June 6, 2016

That Sea King in the museum? Canada still uses them, thanks to a fundamentally broken military procurement strategy and politics.
posted by thewalrus at 1:41 PM on June 6, 2016

Great museum. The WW2 control room is excellent.
posted by crocomancer at 1:45 PM on June 6, 2016

My Nan lives near Duxford. A year-or-so back I was driving home after a visit at the end of an airshow, I saw 21 WWII fighters (Spitfires, Hurricanes, Hellcats, Mustangs, an Me 109...) circling and coming in to land 3-abreast. I nearly stacked the car.
posted by stanf at 2:47 PM on June 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

The de Havilland Mosquito is made out of wood.
posted by ovvl at 8:44 PM on June 6, 2016

The Wellcome Trust Genome campus is right on the flight path of Duxford. The joke there is that the European Genomics research could be taken out with a Spitfire crash.
posted by diekhans at 11:20 PM on June 6, 2016

I used to live in Bedford and spent a lot of time in there.
If you do have a chance to go, try to make sure that it is a flying day.
At the same time spend some time at the National Arboretum
posted by Burn_IT at 2:18 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]