Some of the buses
The Brooklands site also holds the London Bus Museum. This is largest collection London buses that are privately owned, including examples of the ‘utility’ buses that were built during WW2. It is long time since I had seen a Green Line bus.
TSR2 cockpit
Readers of my posts after visits to RAF Cosford will know of my passion for the cancelled TSR2 aircraft, here at Brooklands there are jigs for the molding of the fuselage being used as road markers and equally as sad this cockpit.
Barnes Wallis Tallboy
I grew up reading books about 617 squadrons exploits with the specialist bombs designed by Barnes Wallis. In the hanger there is a wall display of his teo types of bouncing bombs and outside this example of a Tallboy (I had hoped there would be a Grand Slam as well). This bomb when dropped created a mini-earthquake and was used to destroy concrete buildings such as the one built to launch V2 rockets as well as destroying bridges and sinking the battleship Tirpitz.
Sir Sidney Camm
Here are some of Sir Sidney’s instruments. he is often one of the forgotten pioneers of British aviation but without him we wouldn’t have had Hurricanes, Typhoons and Tempests. Post war he worked on the Hawker Hunter and contributed to the design of the Kestrel which became the Harrier.
Brooklands as an aircraft factory
It is hard to believe that VC10s were built on site and made take-offs from the runway in the centre of the racetrack. The site has built lots of other different types of aircraft including Varsity, Viscount, Vanguard and Wellingtons as well as significant parts of the Concorde. On the display boards in the hanger there are reminders of the large number of sites where aircraft were designed and built across the whole of Britain.
I have included a picture of just one of the aircraft in the Vickers aircraft park, that of a VC10 owned by the Sultan of Oman. One of the last aircraft to have landed on the runway.
