RAF Museum Hendon

[Dave Homewood]

The Fury, and later developed Sea Fury, was a different design again.

[planecrazy]

Interesting never knew their was a land based Fury, wonder how much went into
modifing the beast for sea operations. On that subject and alighting on the water
bit of a flying boat fan, some nice examples of water capable machines at Hendon.

Felixstowe Flying Boat, the images along the front show pictures of her life, from
service to a period as a house boat then her restoration to how she is now viewed.






Supermarine Stranraer.




Really like how the Hendon Sunderland has a flat paint scheme and has a somewhat
operational grubby look to her, also how accessible she is.






Be interested to hear if the RNZAF Sunderlands where delivered with the fixed
forward firing machine guns?

[Dave Homewood]

The Hawker Fury was designed to an RAF requirement. An order for 200 aircraft was placed on 28 April 1944, but the order was later cancelled.

The one that was in New Zealand was originally a Fury built for the Iranian Air Force, they were known unofficially as Baghdad Furies, and they had 55 built. They did not have folding wings and tail hooks. The New Zealand on had the wings modified and tail hook added to resemble a Sea Fury of the Royal Navy, using parts from a crashed RNHF example.

A lot of the ones flying in the world today were Baghdad Furies I believe.

[jp]

Your pic of the felixstowe is actually a Southampton, I think?

[isc]

The Fury, and Sea Fury(folding wings, tail hook etc)designs were developed from from the Tempest, but were new designs.The initial design was known as the "Tempest light fighter (Centarus), it too was tried with the Gryphon, and Saber.

One theory of why the Tempest V flew first was political/personal "thing" against Bristol, and favouring inline, liquid cooled engines. There were a number of designs put forward, the Tempest I with Napier Saber with the radiators in the wing leading edge, The II with the chin radiator, two with the Bristol Centarus, the IV and V, and another two with the RR Gryphon, the Tempest III, Hawkers went ahead with the I, II< and IV. The I was the fastest, but Napier didn't continue with the engine, the Saber IV, hawkers kept working on that machine until mid 1945.

The tempest was at first named Typhoon II, and the first prototype use a Typhoon fuselage with the new wing. isc

[markrogers]

Great photos, thanks.
Yes that "Typhoon" is a Tempest. I read somewhere about the Sea Fury, it's wings were the same as the Tempest, but with the center section shortened.

If you look at the Sunderland's wing floats, they're shorter than they were before. The Museum actually cut them shorter so that people would'nt bump into them while walking around. There was a bit of a discussion on one of the british historic aviation forums about it, they weren't happy about it. Apparently it had something to do with health and safety concerns by the museum who were concerned about people getting hurt.

[nuuumannn]

Yep, Supermarine Southampton. Was a houseboat at Felixtowe, oddly enough.

Hendon has undergone enormous change; Planecrazy, you will have noticed the pathways between the hangars and the grass area at centre, as well as the entrance being what used to be the Battle of Britain hall. All of the aircraft from the BoB hall are currently on display at Hendon and Cosford, except for the Tiger Moth, Seagull V and Lysander, the latter is undergoing restoration at Cosford. Also, contrary to the negative comments in the other forum, I happen to think not surrounding the aircraft with crap is a good thing, certainly for photography. Granted, the Sunderland floats thing is a little questionable, but I do think some of those guys on the British forums b*tch a bit.

Out of the collection, I would say that the yellow Bleriot XXVII, the Defiant and the DH.9A are my faves, the latter because of its heritage. This is the only surviving Airco DH.9A, which was shot down over France and captured by the Germans in 1918. Maintained in flying trim by its former adversary, the machine found its way into the national aviation museum, The Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung in the heart of Berlin, but when this was subject to a visit from the DH.9A's former operator in 1943, the museum burned down with 90 percent of its collection destroyed. This one survived and via a circuitous route ended up in Crakow, where it was kept in the national aviation collection of Poland. During the late 60s, RAF personnel (The RAF Museum didn't exist at that stage) got wind of the machine's existence and a trade was established in which the Polish museum would receive a Spitfire in honour of Poles who fought in the RAF, for the DH.9A. Needless to say, the crossing into Warsaw Pact controlled East Germany, then Poland of an RAF low loader carrying a Spitfire in one direction and a DH.9A in the other during the height of the Cold War took some logistical magic from both sides to pull off.

0407 RAFM D.H.9A

[camtech]

Great to see the sunderland in all its glory. When I visited Hendon too many years ago to remember, it was sitting outside, looking a bit worse for wear.
Must start digging up my rather average slides from that trip and posting them.

[chbessexboy]

Aug 12, 2018 0:05:53 GMT 12 isc said:

The Fury, and Sea Fury(folding wings, tail hook etc)designs were developed from from the Tempest, but were new designs.The initial design was known as the "Tempest light fighter (Centarus), it too was tried with the Gryphon, and Saber.

One theory of why the Tempest V flew first was political/personal "thing" against Bristol, and favouring inline, liquid cooled engines. There were a number of designs put forward, the Tempest I with Napier Saber with the radiators in the wing leading edge, The II with the chin radiator, two with the Bristol Centarus, the IV and V, and another two with the RR Gryphon, the Tempest III, Hawkers went ahead with the I, II< and IV. The I was the fastest, but Napier didn't continue with the engine, the Saber IV, hawhers kept working on that machine until mid 1945.

The tempest was at first named Typhoon II, and the first prototype use a Typhoon fuselage with the new wing. isc

My understand is that there were development problems with the Centauras and the Sabre powered MkV was produced to fill the gap until it was sorted.

[isc]

Yiour probably right there about development problems with the Centarus, all those large engines were amazing in as much as they worked, and worked so well, further problems solved by Mr Whittle and co, and the jet engine. isc

[11SQNLDR]

I sat under the wing of the Sunderland 4 weeks ago and had smoko with my son - disgusted that the wing floats have been shortened, what a crock!
A simple rope barrier would have stopped anybody banging their scone on them, very short-sighted. A number of the IWM staff were clearly unimpressed too.

Also disappointing that you can no longer go inside the old girl and that the hatches were shut where there used to be mannequins there in the past making for what I thought was a pretty damn good display (when I last visited in 2011).

[planecrazy]

I hope they scratch built the short float struts and kept the original ones so they can be refitted
down the track? Bit disappointing not to see the Walrus and Lysander, would have liked to have
seen the Sunderland with those mannequins as well, very life like, can't win them all I guess.

[Gavin Conroy]

I had a spare half day so drove down from Duxford for a look due to all of the development work I had heard about at Hendon.
Couple of things that were obvious to me were the Me-110 looked good as it had been moved and had some better lighting around it so made a nice photo.

I don't want to be critical but I was a bit disappointed to find the JU 87 and He 111 pushed into a dark corner almost looking like an after thought.
They have such a good range of BOB aircraft it is a pity they could not all be parked together, would be one of the best displays to be found anywhere if they could.
In saying that it does look like they have plenty of room for potential and a lot of new display that would appeal to the general public and all in all they have some beautiful aircraft there.
With some of the aircraft being moved to Cosford, if you anyone is over there be sure to drop in for a visit.

[Dave Homewood]

The Battle of Britain aircraft were indeed all parked together in their own hall till recently. I cannot understand the rationale of the museum to break up what was perhaps their most important group exhibit. Especially doing so right before the RAF's 100th Anniversary seemed crazy.

[jp]

I visited Hendon and the BoB Hall 6-8 times over a 10 year period between 2000-2009, and never once was it well lit - at least once the glass wall went in at the Sunderland end, you could actually see your hand in front of your face.

As for it being a collection of BoB aircraft, the Ju87, Ju88, Me110 and Spanish trainer(?) that were there were definately not BOB variants, and I think The Heinkel was a latter version as well? The bombers (Heinkel and Ju87) are in the Bomber Hall, the Me109, Spitfire and CR42 are grouped together in the Main Hall, and the Me110 is displayed with the Lancaster, which are all logical groupings....

Maybe with 100 years of history to celebrate, 20% of the available display space for a 3 month conflict was seen as extravagant?

[Dave Homewood]

A "three month conflict"that was pivotal in the very survival of the RAF as a force, as well as the nation as a whole. Rather significant in my book.

[jp]

Try another book -"Invasion 1940" by Derek Robinson.

[Dave Homewood]

He's a fiction writer isn't he?

[jp]

He has written fiction yes - "A Piece of Cake", among others. Does write more than one genre.

[nuuumannn]

The Battle of Britain aircraft were indeed all parked together in their own hall till recently. I cannot understand the rationale of the museum to break up what was perhaps their most important group exhibit. Especially doing so right before the RAF's 100th Anniversary seemed crazy.

Kinda does, but there was a greater rationale for the changes at Hendon, and yes, access to the Sunderland will happen again, so I've been told. The struts being shortened? Yep, a bit rubbish, but H/S laws are strict in the UK and that space will be used for temporary exhibitions, dinners etc. The work is not irreverseable.

The Lysander is undergoing restoration at Cosford, I'm not sure where the Seagull V is, but it and the Bucker trainer are the only aircraft from the BoB Hall no longer on display. The ones not at Hendon are at Cosford. The four fighters is the concession to the Battle of Britain in the main halls - each of those aircraft saw combat during the battle, so occupy a prominent place - they are the only actual BoB veterans from the BoB Hall, in fact (strictly speaking, the Defiant went into Sqn service in September 1940 as a night fighter and its likely it flew combat patrols at night during the period of the battle).

The Heinkel and Ju 87 do look a bit lost where they are, but if you have been to Hendon often, you'll notice that the main halls havent changed much at all, and after evacuating the Buccaneer and other stuff out of them to fill the new exhibition spaces, there were empty spaces that needed to be filled. That end is still a work in progress - there is still much to be done in the main building. You might have noticed that the carpeted areas are gradually being removed and the entire floor is being painted grey, for ease of moving aeroplanes about.

I could go on about what the public expect from a place like Hendon and what the museum is doing about it, having spoken to senior staff at the museum about that very subject a few weeks ago, but there's little point.

Hendon's Battle of Britain veterans.

0507 RAFM Bf 109E

0507 RAFM Spitfire I

0507 RAFM CR-42

0507 RAFM Hurricane I