Drive
It Day 2016
As
I have done in previous years it is a trip out with the 2CV club. A convoy of seven cars left the start point at Runnymede. I was in my El Cid (a Mehari replica). It
was a nice dry day with a bit of sunshine and it would have been good
to get out there on a bike and I'm sure many of you did.
I still have
the book by Ixion rattling around in my head with the progress that
happened very early on in spite of the lack of adventurous designs
and high risk of failure around an unknown product. That product has
evolved into a very sophisticated piece of kit around a petrol engine
that came out of the dark ages and back into the “Dark Ages” this
time with aviation. The trip out was to the Museum of Berkshire
Aviation, at Woodley near Reading, with the history of locally built
aeroplanes from Handley Page and Fairey.
There were some incredible
models and so much information about everything that many of us took
a break to be able to read more. There were guides to help us and
there were some interesting discussions about the designs. Of great
interest was the jet rotor where the jet engines were mounted at the
ends of a helicopter rotor blades and spun them around at phenomenal
speed. I wouldn't have wanted to be around if one of them came loose!
As this history of aviation covers two world wars motorcycles were
not left out. There is a nice red Corgi to see and also many of the
famous pilots were also enthusiastic motorcyclist-must be something
to do with death or glory stuff?
There efforts have been well
represented at Brooklands and there are snippets around that reflect
this. It is a small but excellent museum packed to the rafters with
aircraft and models with information about everything.
I had walked
around with some aircraft buffs and so much of what we had achieved
technologically was streets ahead of everyone else at the time and so
many of the ideas were later put into practice in modern aircraft and
hailed as new! I enjoyed the visit immensely. I'll visit again after
my brain has settled down after being immersed in so much mechanical
history. It is not expensive to visit and cheap enough to drop in if
you only have half an hour at £3.50 for adults and £2.50 for
seniors. I'll be going back again with more fliers for the LMM.
No comments:
Post a Comment