Hello everyone, my next deep dive is another world class aviation museum, the RAF Museum at Hendon, now "London", apparently so as to not confuse punters as to its location. I have decided to do this museum the justice it deserves since it gets a lot of flack online, particularly because of recent changes to the museum's layout and display spaces, which we will be examining and discussing here, so get ready for an informative ride that not everyone will agree with, I'm sure, but I can guarantee it will inform and possibly entertain. I should point out that I have connections to the RAF Museum (from here on in RAFM for brevity) and I have very fond memories of the place, which is a part of the reason I'm doing this. It is a great museum full of professionals who know what they are doing, even if not everyone agrees with the decisions they make.
Anyway, the RAFM holds the largest collection of vintage and historic aircraft in the UK, with aeroplanes at locations around the country and within its own facilities, but this deep dive will examine Hendon only, the home of the RAFM, although reference will be made to Cosford and the RAFM store at Stafford, which I never got to while I was at Hendon.
So, join me, if you dare, on a Deep Dive into the RAF Museum, Hendon.
RAFM 239
The RAFM's Avro Lancaster I R5868 is still the centrepiece of the museum and we'll look at its remarkable history later. For now a caveat; these images were taken in 2018, so things might have changed by now. We begin with a look back at the origins of the RAFM, first mooted in World War Two, which seems like a prescient time to have thought about a military history museum, although sadly, those with history in mind did not act swiftly enough to prevent the postwar cull that saw many significant RAF types disappear into extinction, such as the Short Stirling, de Havilland Hornet and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. The desire to preserve the RAF's rich history, as brief as it was by the end of World War Two didn't end there; personnel at air stations around the country began collecting aeroplanes to form their own collections, which saw public interest during open days and airshows. Places like Biggin Hill, Colerne and St Athan had, by the late 1960s amassed large numbers of historic and often eccentric airframes, some of which were maintained in runnable condition and which survive to this day as a part of RAFM's collection.
An actual RAF museum was discussed on and off within Whitehall following the war and in 1965, concrete efforts were made to establish such a thing. Plans immediately began to formulate around where a possible location might be for the RAFM, and one idea was on the banks of the River Thames in downtown London, and plans were drawn up for this rather restricting venture, which came to nothing for that very reason - no room to expand. Sites around the country were visited, including RAF Henlow, which had become a repository for historic airframes that the RAFM and the RAF Air Historic Branch (AHB) had decided were worth saving. A bit about the AHB, it was initially established in 1919 but at the end of World War Two was at RAF Stanmore in North London with the aim of preserving RAF records and it holds that role to this day. From Stanmore it moved to Bentley Priory, just up Stanmore Hill and was there for many years until moving to its current location at RAF Northolt following Bentley Priory's closure as an RAF base in 2008. Most of the airframes that littered air station collections and gate guardians around the country belonged to the AHB and it was AHB airframes that went into the RAFM at Hendon on opening in 1972, but in 1998 these were, in an administrative stroke of the pen transferred to RAFM operation and ownership. There's more to come on the AHB, so keep an eye out.
RAF Bentley Priory, home to the AHB and administration HQ for a massive fleet of historic airframes scattered across the country.
1707 Bentley Priory Spitfire
Back to the RAFM and RAF Hendon was still an active airfield in the late 1960s when the decision was made to establish the RAFM on site at Britain's most historic military aerodrome and one of its earliest. In August 1965, RAF librarian Dr John Tanner visited the Grahame-White factory hangar at Hendon for a possible location, but it wasn't for another year that this was followed up with further action. Although the Grahame-White hangar certainly had historical provenance, more about Claude Grahame-White and his aircraft factory later, a decision was made in 1967 that the RAFM should occupy the old wooden Belfast Truss Great War vintage hangars still occupying the airfield's eastern perimeter. To facilitate their preservation, as well as the aeroplanes that were to go within them, they were encased in a modern 1970s era concrete shell, which serves as the administration headquarters of the RAFM to this day. Within this building was the offices and facilities required for a modern museum, including an archive and library with its own reading room, still in use. This is the RAFM HQ building, with the archive occupying the top floor, the domed ceiling on this side of the entry vestibule are the archive and on the other side is the library, with the Reading Room located above the entry. The big hangar numbers are a recent addition and I'll explain their reason later.
RAFM 01
Opening on 15 November 1972 by Her Majesty the Queen, the RAFM was run as a civilian entity, rather than a branch of the service, but with Ministry of Defence funding, which given the nature of the service was not a huge amount initially and the museum relied, and still does today on corporate sponsorship. Soon the original hangar spaces were expanded on and new structures were incorporated into the site, the Bomber Command Hall, where R5868 can be seen above, and a new remote structure, the Battle of Britain (BoB) Hall, which formerly opened its doors in 1978. This was built following the collection of suitable airframes for an exhibition titled "Wings Of The Eagle", which saw elements of the RAFM's extensive collection of wartime Axis equipment go on public display together. Today the BoB Hall has been revamped, which has caused much criticism among enthusiasts for various reasons, but the museum, I am assured had justifiable reason to make the changes, and besides, the aircraft that inhabited it are still on display, at Hendon and Cosford. As an interesting little aside, the mannequins that adorned the entrance to the old BoB Hall were modelled off the Royal family!
A scene from the BoB Hall featuring genuine summer 1940 veterans Bf 109E and Fiat CR.42, which we'll see later in this thread as they are both still at Hendon.
BoB Hall
So let's get into some controversy and a realistic appraisal of how museums survive in a modern environment where they are competing for attention with other attractions in the greater London area. A world renowned museum might not necessarily be the destination of choice for visitors to London, nor even families wishing to keep them and their kids occupied in the weekend, so the RAFM has work to do to interest people in this modern digital age. Several years ago, the trustees of the museum conducted a review of the museum's future, which included visitor surveys over a period of several years to establish what it was that the general public wanted from a museum about the RAF. The results were alarming. Visitor numbers remained relatively static over the period in which the research was carried out, around 100,000 per year, but expectations were generally not being met. At over 70 percent of all attendees, the largest visitor demographic was families with children, often who had little or no understanding of the RAF or of aviation in general. In saying that however, many in this demographic did have a family member or friends who had or currently served in the RAF.
In this age of instant gratification through social media and the world wide web, wandering about a darkened hall full of static aeroplanes with nothing describing them except a bracket of text on a flat board was anachronistic. The museum was also accused of lacking context; there was little that advised how the aircraft were used within the greater structure of the RAF and by far the biggest request made by the public was that the museum provide more information about people involved with the aeroplanes and the service in general. People want to hear about people, and the RAF Museum did not provide this. Today, the entry to the museum is in what used to be the BoB Hall, but is now Hangar 1, "RAF Stories" and "First To The Future". The entry to the museum display proper, with a wall of headgear worn by RAF personnel over the years.
RAFM 02
There will be more on these choices as we meander our way around the site, but suffice to say, reviews of the museum since the changes were made have largely been positive, the museum is now catering to the requests of the largest visitor demographic. The reality of this move is that if it didn't the museum would not survive. The RAFM is a National Museum, so it is free admission to the public and it relies of public attendance for continued funding, making money from special exhibitions and shop/cafe sales. This is the reality of museums today, folks - either accept it or don't.
So, soap box away, let's look at some aeroplanes. We begin with one of the treasures of the collection, the world's only surviving complete example of an Airco DH.9A. This particular aeroplane has a fascinating history, and I've referred to it on this forum on numerous occasions. built as DH.9A F1010 by Westland as one of a batch of 150 aircraft powered by the US built 400 hp Liberty V8 engine, the aircraft first entered service in August 1918 and was chosen to be financed by His Serene Highness, the Nizam of Hyderabad, after whom the aeroplane was named, entring 110 (Hyderabad) Sqn. (Hyderabad was, at one stage a state within a state in India, and has a long and turbulent history - see here: Hyderabad - Wikipedia )
The DH.9A perched above the entrance to the new display area. Curiously it's missing a tyre.
RAFM 03
Going into action in September 1918 in France, F1010 took part in several bombing raids against German cities, including Frankfurt and Koln, and it was during an attack on Kaiserslautern on 5 October 1918 that the aeroplane was brought down, either by engine failure or AA, but it landed intact and its crew survived and were interned. Following this, the aircraft's movements are murky, but while it was undergoing restoration back in Britain, German Lozenge camouflage covering was found. Eventually the aeroplane resurfaced in the big Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung in the heart of Berlin, opened in 1936, the year of the XIth Olympiade and the world's largest aviation museum at the time. In 1943 during an air raid by the RAF, the museum was destroyed by fire, and in an act of bravery, staff members dragged half smouldering aircraft from the ruins following the raid and packed them on to trains east, ending up in Poland. Again, what happened to the DH.9A in this time is not immediately known, but it became apparent in the mid 1960s that a museum behind the iron curtain had a cache of historic Great War airframes and one of them was an ex-RAF DH.9A, devoid of wings and still bearing scars from its ordeal in Berlin. In 1968, private negotiations began with the museum housing these treasures, today the excellent Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego (MLP) in Cracow, an arrangement was made that the DH.9A would be exchanged for a Spitfire, XVIe SM411. By 1971 the details were being hammered out between the RAFM and the MLP, but it was not for another six years that an RAF low loader ventured forth through Warsaw Pact held territory to Poland carrying a Spitfire! This was known as Operation Fair Exchange and by 28 June 1977, the remains of the last surviving DH.9A were safely within the RAFM Store at Cardington.
RAFM 04
That's it for today, the word count is easily exceeded in these posts, so more to come from Hendon soon.
Anyway, the RAFM holds the largest collection of vintage and historic aircraft in the UK, with aeroplanes at locations around the country and within its own facilities, but this deep dive will examine Hendon only, the home of the RAFM, although reference will be made to Cosford and the RAFM store at Stafford, which I never got to while I was at Hendon.
So, join me, if you dare, on a Deep Dive into the RAF Museum, Hendon.
The RAFM's Avro Lancaster I R5868 is still the centrepiece of the museum and we'll look at its remarkable history later. For now a caveat; these images were taken in 2018, so things might have changed by now. We begin with a look back at the origins of the RAFM, first mooted in World War Two, which seems like a prescient time to have thought about a military history museum, although sadly, those with history in mind did not act swiftly enough to prevent the postwar cull that saw many significant RAF types disappear into extinction, such as the Short Stirling, de Havilland Hornet and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. The desire to preserve the RAF's rich history, as brief as it was by the end of World War Two didn't end there; personnel at air stations around the country began collecting aeroplanes to form their own collections, which saw public interest during open days and airshows. Places like Biggin Hill, Colerne and St Athan had, by the late 1960s amassed large numbers of historic and often eccentric airframes, some of which were maintained in runnable condition and which survive to this day as a part of RAFM's collection.
An actual RAF museum was discussed on and off within Whitehall following the war and in 1965, concrete efforts were made to establish such a thing. Plans immediately began to formulate around where a possible location might be for the RAFM, and one idea was on the banks of the River Thames in downtown London, and plans were drawn up for this rather restricting venture, which came to nothing for that very reason - no room to expand. Sites around the country were visited, including RAF Henlow, which had become a repository for historic airframes that the RAFM and the RAF Air Historic Branch (AHB) had decided were worth saving. A bit about the AHB, it was initially established in 1919 but at the end of World War Two was at RAF Stanmore in North London with the aim of preserving RAF records and it holds that role to this day. From Stanmore it moved to Bentley Priory, just up Stanmore Hill and was there for many years until moving to its current location at RAF Northolt following Bentley Priory's closure as an RAF base in 2008. Most of the airframes that littered air station collections and gate guardians around the country belonged to the AHB and it was AHB airframes that went into the RAFM at Hendon on opening in 1972, but in 1998 these were, in an administrative stroke of the pen transferred to RAFM operation and ownership. There's more to come on the AHB, so keep an eye out.
RAF Bentley Priory, home to the AHB and administration HQ for a massive fleet of historic airframes scattered across the country.
Back to the RAFM and RAF Hendon was still an active airfield in the late 1960s when the decision was made to establish the RAFM on site at Britain's most historic military aerodrome and one of its earliest. In August 1965, RAF librarian Dr John Tanner visited the Grahame-White factory hangar at Hendon for a possible location, but it wasn't for another year that this was followed up with further action. Although the Grahame-White hangar certainly had historical provenance, more about Claude Grahame-White and his aircraft factory later, a decision was made in 1967 that the RAFM should occupy the old wooden Belfast Truss Great War vintage hangars still occupying the airfield's eastern perimeter. To facilitate their preservation, as well as the aeroplanes that were to go within them, they were encased in a modern 1970s era concrete shell, which serves as the administration headquarters of the RAFM to this day. Within this building was the offices and facilities required for a modern museum, including an archive and library with its own reading room, still in use. This is the RAFM HQ building, with the archive occupying the top floor, the domed ceiling on this side of the entry vestibule are the archive and on the other side is the library, with the Reading Room located above the entry. The big hangar numbers are a recent addition and I'll explain their reason later.
Opening on 15 November 1972 by Her Majesty the Queen, the RAFM was run as a civilian entity, rather than a branch of the service, but with Ministry of Defence funding, which given the nature of the service was not a huge amount initially and the museum relied, and still does today on corporate sponsorship. Soon the original hangar spaces were expanded on and new structures were incorporated into the site, the Bomber Command Hall, where R5868 can be seen above, and a new remote structure, the Battle of Britain (BoB) Hall, which formerly opened its doors in 1978. This was built following the collection of suitable airframes for an exhibition titled "Wings Of The Eagle", which saw elements of the RAFM's extensive collection of wartime Axis equipment go on public display together. Today the BoB Hall has been revamped, which has caused much criticism among enthusiasts for various reasons, but the museum, I am assured had justifiable reason to make the changes, and besides, the aircraft that inhabited it are still on display, at Hendon and Cosford. As an interesting little aside, the mannequins that adorned the entrance to the old BoB Hall were modelled off the Royal family!
A scene from the BoB Hall featuring genuine summer 1940 veterans Bf 109E and Fiat CR.42, which we'll see later in this thread as they are both still at Hendon.
So let's get into some controversy and a realistic appraisal of how museums survive in a modern environment where they are competing for attention with other attractions in the greater London area. A world renowned museum might not necessarily be the destination of choice for visitors to London, nor even families wishing to keep them and their kids occupied in the weekend, so the RAFM has work to do to interest people in this modern digital age. Several years ago, the trustees of the museum conducted a review of the museum's future, which included visitor surveys over a period of several years to establish what it was that the general public wanted from a museum about the RAF. The results were alarming. Visitor numbers remained relatively static over the period in which the research was carried out, around 100,000 per year, but expectations were generally not being met. At over 70 percent of all attendees, the largest visitor demographic was families with children, often who had little or no understanding of the RAF or of aviation in general. In saying that however, many in this demographic did have a family member or friends who had or currently served in the RAF.
In this age of instant gratification through social media and the world wide web, wandering about a darkened hall full of static aeroplanes with nothing describing them except a bracket of text on a flat board was anachronistic. The museum was also accused of lacking context; there was little that advised how the aircraft were used within the greater structure of the RAF and by far the biggest request made by the public was that the museum provide more information about people involved with the aeroplanes and the service in general. People want to hear about people, and the RAF Museum did not provide this. Today, the entry to the museum is in what used to be the BoB Hall, but is now Hangar 1, "RAF Stories" and "First To The Future". The entry to the museum display proper, with a wall of headgear worn by RAF personnel over the years.
There will be more on these choices as we meander our way around the site, but suffice to say, reviews of the museum since the changes were made have largely been positive, the museum is now catering to the requests of the largest visitor demographic. The reality of this move is that if it didn't the museum would not survive. The RAFM is a National Museum, so it is free admission to the public and it relies of public attendance for continued funding, making money from special exhibitions and shop/cafe sales. This is the reality of museums today, folks - either accept it or don't.
So, soap box away, let's look at some aeroplanes. We begin with one of the treasures of the collection, the world's only surviving complete example of an Airco DH.9A. This particular aeroplane has a fascinating history, and I've referred to it on this forum on numerous occasions. built as DH.9A F1010 by Westland as one of a batch of 150 aircraft powered by the US built 400 hp Liberty V8 engine, the aircraft first entered service in August 1918 and was chosen to be financed by His Serene Highness, the Nizam of Hyderabad, after whom the aeroplane was named, entring 110 (Hyderabad) Sqn. (Hyderabad was, at one stage a state within a state in India, and has a long and turbulent history - see here: Hyderabad - Wikipedia )
The DH.9A perched above the entrance to the new display area. Curiously it's missing a tyre.
Going into action in September 1918 in France, F1010 took part in several bombing raids against German cities, including Frankfurt and Koln, and it was during an attack on Kaiserslautern on 5 October 1918 that the aeroplane was brought down, either by engine failure or AA, but it landed intact and its crew survived and were interned. Following this, the aircraft's movements are murky, but while it was undergoing restoration back in Britain, German Lozenge camouflage covering was found. Eventually the aeroplane resurfaced in the big Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung in the heart of Berlin, opened in 1936, the year of the XIth Olympiade and the world's largest aviation museum at the time. In 1943 during an air raid by the RAF, the museum was destroyed by fire, and in an act of bravery, staff members dragged half smouldering aircraft from the ruins following the raid and packed them on to trains east, ending up in Poland. Again, what happened to the DH.9A in this time is not immediately known, but it became apparent in the mid 1960s that a museum behind the iron curtain had a cache of historic Great War airframes and one of them was an ex-RAF DH.9A, devoid of wings and still bearing scars from its ordeal in Berlin. In 1968, private negotiations began with the museum housing these treasures, today the excellent Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego (MLP) in Cracow, an arrangement was made that the DH.9A would be exchanged for a Spitfire, XVIe SM411. By 1971 the details were being hammered out between the RAFM and the MLP, but it was not for another six years that an RAF low loader ventured forth through Warsaw Pact held territory to Poland carrying a Spitfire! This was known as Operation Fair Exchange and by 28 June 1977, the remains of the last surviving DH.9A were safely within the RAFM Store at Cardington.
That's it for today, the word count is easily exceeded in these posts, so more to come from Hendon soon.
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