hkskyline

I first heard about Brooklands Museum because of its bus collection. I was curious whether this was a branch of the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, which I visited many years ago. But apparently it's a separate museum in the far outskirts of London, charging a fairly hefty admission fee.

The ticket includes admission to 2 museums on the site. Thanks to the many friendly volunteers offering detailed commentary throughout the site, I learned that this museum sits on the world's first motor racing circuit, which opened in 1907. I left very impressed and the admission was well worth the experience.

Aircraft manufacturing arrived during World War I and continued during World War II. Over 5700 military aircraft were produced here, and after the war, a few successful civilian planes were also made here. During its 80 year history, nearly 19,000 aircraft made their first flights at Brooklands.







On the other side of the Concorde is a special VC10 that was used by the Sultan of Oman. The first VC10 flew from Brooklands in 1962 and was the biggest, most luxurious aircraft produced in the country.











The BAC 1-11 flew for 29 years and arrived here in 1994. Developed in the 1960s, this type was one of Britain's best-selling planes, with the largest version able to carry 119 passengers cruising at 21,000 feet.













This Vickers 806 Viscount was built in 1958 and the model was the world's first turboprop plane for passenger use. After 444 planes were made, production ceased in the early 1960s. It can seat up to 71 passengers.









The "Superb" was built in 1961 for British European Airways. It was converted into a cargo plane in 1970, and flew until 1996 when Hunting Cargo donated the plane to the museum. The Vanguard came at the wrong time when turboprop planes were no longer competitive and only 44 of these were built, all at this site.











This unsuspecting-looking building is actually quite historic. This was the world's first booking office offering recreational flights to the public, dating from 1911.



More photos on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/surrey.htm

CosmosHuman

I’ll need to visit. Do they have a Lancaster?

lamphs

I am thinking about a 3 week trip to the LON area in January. I'll put this on my list for a visit!

hkskyline

Unfortunately they don't have a Lancaster.

Here's their collection : https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explore/heritage-and-collection/our-collection

atsak

There's one here:
https://www.warplane.com/aircraft/collection.aspx

It's really cool! Your profile says Cleveland; it's about 3 1/2 hours drive to Hamilton, Ontario Canada from there.

Mwenenzi

Good report.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...vro_Lancasters

dsf

Love seeing this report - Brooklands is a wonderful place. I live close by (ish) and have been a few times. I think it's worth mentioning that you can actually go inside the Concorde! https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/exp...rde-Experience

NB. I don't think anyone around here would describe Weybridge as "the far outskirts of London".

Also, for any 5km runners, on Saturday mornings at 9am there's a Brooklands Parkrun - outside the museum, but taking in a disused runway and part of the banked motor racing circuit. When I ran it the volunteers giving the briefing were keen to talk up the aviation heritage/theme: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/brooklands/course/

hkskyline

Yes! The Concorde is a small supplement on top of the admission but I passed since I went into the one parked on the Intrepid in New York years ago.

mikeyfly

Thanks for posting, very informative. I work inside Brooklands track and take for granted this is out the back of the office! I remember visiting as a school trip maybe 32/33 years ago before the track was chopped through and the superstores and offices were built….

CosmosHuman

I’m going to be in Detroit next week for a work trip a little over three weeks, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time to visit that museum, but I found a warbird museum in Windsor. They’re restoring a Lanc, that once was on display in a park. The Hamilton museum is over a four drive.
ETA: I’ve seen the Lancaster from Hamilton fly many years ago at a small Airshow in Willoughby, OH at Lost Nation Airport. Sadly, no more air shows there.
Yes, I’m from the CLE area.

nequine

Great looking collection of old planes there! Have you been to the Museum of Flight just outside of Edinburgh? It is well worth a visit if you haven't been.

hkskyline

Not yet. I'll put it on my to go list! Thanks for the recommendation.

757

Great report. I loved visiting this museum back in 2017 when on a trip to England with my wife. We loved touring inside the Concorde - definitely the highlight in my mind!

TheFlyingDoctor

Wonderful, thanks for sharing. I am on a very slow project to visit all the British Concordes, but I've yet to make it to Brooklands- this encourages me to pencil something in! I did tick off the National Museum of Flight in Scotland last month, and can second the recommendation for the collection as a whole. But my pick for best-presented Concorde (of the 6 I've seen so far) is at Aerospace Bristol - it has a dedicated hangar, with a high tech projection system beaming video onto the aircraft itself:


G-BOAF

xooz

Thanks for this! We have an upcoming trip mid-November so might take a trip down. I guess a day Travelcard would work best as a transit option for the trip.