Imperial War Museum: Duxford Collection
I recently spent a couple of weeks in London. I managed to squeeze in an entire day at IWM-Duxford, which was a short train ride to a spot just outside of Cambridge. Here is just a sampling of the photos I took at this huge aeronautical collection. I picked a few of my favorites and some unusual types for multiple shots, like the BAC Lightning, TSR-2, Sea Vixen, Victor, Blenheim and Gannet There are many more detail shots on my camera, but maybe I will upload some Walk Around pics later. The USAAF museum was stuffed full of aircraft and I took many more pictures there. Only one in this upload (the B-17), given that this is just a sample for now. I hope you enjoy these.
Great photos Colin @coling. Aren’t those two museums superb? Looks like a lot more planes have been added since I was there for the Duxford Legends Airshow about ten yrs ago. Did you visit the Tank Museum next door? Show us some more photos.
Hi Eric. Glad you like the pics. So busy with work this week hard to find the time to reply till now! We went to both Duxford and The RAF Museum - London (formerly Hendon). I did also see and photograph the armor collection at Duxford. VERY dark in there but the pics came out OK. All the London and area museums were wonderful. Duxford is not free but worth the admission plus train fare. My daughter was very patient taking it all in and I think caught on a bit to the beauty of airplanes. I will post more soon. Hopefully no one will mind some more views of the RAF museum as well. I took some different angles to John's pics ,even if he covered the collection well with one pic per plane.
Incredible collection! Thanks for sharing, Colin...would love to see more.
Thanks for commenting, Gary. It takes time to resize the pics, but I will upload more soon.
MOAR PICTURES! Please.
More soon, Tom. It will be doubling up on some of John's but worth it to cover both museums, I think.
wow! lots of great changes since I was last there!
Maybe I will be able to get back there someday, but its probably more likely that NAS Pensacola will allow access to NMNA again the way they used to!
Dan.
Yeah, they keep moving stuff around in the UK, which is good. A lot of the Duxford stuff actually flies and there were four Spitfires and two Hurricanes buzzing the field all day. The Sea Fury and P-47 were also out on the grass but didn't take to the air when I was there. Too bad. I really need to take a tour of the aircraft museums in Washington and Florida. Fairly close to home in Toronto.
The UK may be in dire straights financially but it has some great museums, glad you enjoyed your visit, Colin.
Yes. The museums were immaculate and the UK seemed so well-kept for tourism generally compared to back home. Amazing they do so well. It was a great trip.
Amazing set of pics, Colin! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for commenting, Spiros. I hope the close-ups and odd detail shots are good for other modelers. I used my SLR to make sure I captured details accurately with minimum distortion.
Another great museum in the UK, Colin @coling
Thanks for sharing those wonderful pictures.
In 2019 I was able to visit those hangars during the Flying Legends event and I loved it a lot.
Thanks, John. I hope you don't mind that I will post a few of the RAF Museum as well. Both museums were a dream come true. I had only seen one Spitfire in the flesh and a Hurricane replica in Canada. I was thrilled to see so many in the UK, along with other RAF classics. It was also good to see the German and Japanese aircraft in London as well. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Ki.100, which used to be at RAF Cosford, far away.
That one lucky lad in picture nr.15 got to show the Victor to his lovely girl!
Lots of couples and families there. I tried not to invade anyone's privacy with my pics. I didn't see anyone who looked bored so I am sure it was a great place for a memorable stroll. The displays were excellent, with something for everyone, besides us airplane enthusiasts.
GREAT stuff. Thanks for posting.
Thanks, Bill. It was great fun taking the pics. Glad they have some appeal for others.
Great pic's Colin, thanks for posting.
Thanks for commenting, Allan. I will post a few more in another series. I think I reached a size limit on this article as some refused to load.
Great pics Colin, thanks for sharing. If you ever get to the USAF Museum, in Dayton, Ohio, let me know, I'm 40 minutes away. Lots of A/C eye candy to view.