Brooklands

Today we took ourselves off to Brooklands Museum near Weybridge.  The museum is a mixture of the history of motor racing and the history of aviation at the site.

The original clubhouse (1907), from the time when Brooklands was a racing track, is beautifully preserved and houses the museum cafe.  There are displays of racing memorabilia and the Ladies Reading Room has been recreated in period style (see photographs).

The airfield that was originally built in 1909 has long gone but many of the aviation buildings that were erected over the years are still there including the monumental Barnes Wallis Stratosphere Chamber which was used to simulate very high altitude conditions.

During the Second World War Brooklands became the home of a Vickers Factory and  many military aircraft were built there. The Aircraft Factory Building has an extensive display of these military aircraft and examples of all the different trades that were needed to design and build the aircraft.

My favourite display concerned the 1969 Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race, which the RAF entered (and won), flying the newly developed Harrier Jump Jet. This article tells the story very nicely (https://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/articles/harriers-in-the-1969-air-race) including how the Harrier was refuelled in-flight ten times by a series of accompanying Victor tanker aircraft as it crossed the Pond. What a tale of derring-do. Those things just don't happened any more.