Today was my first trip out with the Gosport Shed. The Expeditions Manager, who does a grand job, had organised a trip to the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm Museum, which is located at the Royal Navy Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton. I have to admit, this is a place I have wanted to visit for quite a while.
It took us just over two hours to travel the nearly 90 miles. The traffic was heavy, especially as the route we took was through Salisbury. But we arrived with plenty of time.
The museum itself is very well organised into four separate halls, with each hall having a topic. Now, the guide went out of his way to stress that the museum has the resources to change the topics (I’m not sure about the frequency), so anything I tell you about content may not apply if you visit anytime after this is posted.
For my visit, the halls were;
- Hall 1 – Early days of flight, and Search and Rescue.
- Hall 2 – World War 2, and initial flight development afterwards
- Hall 3 – The Aircraft Carrier experience
- Hall 4 – General Flight matters & development
Each hall probably took me around an hour to go around, and I didn’t read everything, so you could spend a lot of time at the museum, which, considering that the tickets are valid for a year, is a good thing.
I think the hall I want to comment on is No. 4. This is because they had one of the early Concorde on display, Concorde 002 was never flown as a commercial craft. It was purely a development prototype. With all of the test equipment apparently intact.
What was surprising is that 002 had an escape hatch, and the crew and engineers wore parachutes. IK couldn’t help wondering if they would jump if travelling at Mach 2 (1354mph) – I don’t think so.
I hadn’t known that the Gosport Shed always programmes a visit to a Wetherspoons after the main visit. This became apparent when it was discussed during the return journey. We ended up at the King’s Head Inn in Salisbury Which I hadn’t connected as being directly opposite to the Bishops Mill, that being what the Camera Club has used on previous visits.
We had a very pleasant meal, and progressed on our way home, having had a really quite nice day out.
Bills Posts 