"Firing into the Brown" #35 - Tangmere, girders and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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Over the course of last summer, Grandson and I managed to make visit to Tangmere to visit the aviation museum.. now this has been on the "expectations" list for years, but as in all things where the location/event/place is 'local', it just seemed to keep be putting off..  I guess because you always think, "well it's local, we can go anytime", and then never do.. 😏

The Aviation Museum is located in one corner of the former Tangmere airfield, which was an RAF fighter station from 1918 until Fighter Command left in 1958, but as an RAF station remained in use until 1970 (among other things they did glider training, and some Fleet Air Arm squadrons were based there towards the end). 

During WWII it was one of the legendary frontline stations - other than the stations in Kent, it would be difficult to get much closer to France! Fighter pilots Douglas Bader and Johnnie Johnson (among many others) were both based there in 1941..

So going through the doors, you are met with a lot of exhibits based on the people that served there, their service records, what life was like on the base, and the work the squadrons based there did. I'd like to go back and have a closer look at it, but Grandson, being 10, wanted to see the planes! 😁

Of these, my favourite exhibit was this one - the English Electric Lightning F53..  one of my abiding memories from very early childhood was attending an air show when I was, I guess, 5 maybe 6?? The show featured a fly past of a Lightning, and it was the loudest thing I had ever experienced, so loud, the memory still stays with me now. The Tangmere one is ex-Saudi Air Force, but has been painted to represent an aircraft of RAF No. 23 Squadron who flew Lightnings (no Lightning squadrons were ever based at Tangmere, but 23 Squadron was based there in WW2).. 

Absolutely enormous - there's two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet engines one on top of the other in that fuselage, no wonder it was noisy.. and fast..  

Grandson was gainfully occupied... 😀

Not a replica or stand in - following - this is the actual Gloster Meteor F4 that captured the world air speed record of 616 mph in 1946...  stunning..

Replica Westland Lysander Mk III in the main hall - following.. I spent a fair amount of time having a look at this and chatting with the volunteer - Tangmere being a forward airfield during WW2 was used by Special Duties Lysanders for missions into occupied northern Europe. I was amazed at the size of it, I'd kind of assumed it would be smaller, but as was explained, they could carry up to three passengers if necessary, and along with long range fuel tanks, the plane couldn't be small... more on the plane in the link above..

It's painted to represent the aircraft of Flying Officer James ‘Mac’ McCairns, who flew 25 successful missions into France, winning three DFC's in the process...  the link for him is worth a read... truly we stand on the shoulders of giants..  

Ex-Red Arrows* T1 Gnat, XR571, in the car park as you arrive.. space for the museum is at a premium so they have a half dozen examples of various planes/helicopter in the car park - as I understand it these get rotated in to the museum on a cyclical basis..

Not mine, but this is a good little overview video..

Anyway, what a fantastic little museum, staffed by hugely knowledgeable and approachable volunteers, grandson loved it so it works on multiple levels - very much recommended..

* to be fair, she never actually flew with them - more info in the linky..  😀

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Must be years since I built a kit, but I've very much been enjoying various Farcebook modelling channels recently (the Mediocre Modellers group is good - and some of them are far from mediocre - also the Airfix group) so I decided to have a look through a whole load of stuff that I picked up, and which used to belong to the brother of my brother in law, who passed last year..

This one caught my eye - as it's supposed to be made, it's a double span (10mm/N gauge), railway girder bridge...

The brick sheets glue together to form three platforms/bases that the bridges then rest on...  one at each end and a single one in the middle that supports the end of each bridge..

Like this..

I'll be using it f or my 15mm WW2 skirmish stuff, so a double span will be way over the top... what I'm thinking of doing is a single span, with a lower support structure...   should be fun...

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...