Flugsammlung Leo Junior at Hermeskeil, Germany

[flugholm]

Four days ago I visited the Flugsammlung Leo Junior at Hermeskeil in the Hunsrueck area. That’s halfway between Frankfurt and Luxemburg. It’s a private collection in the middle of nowhere. All aircraft arrived on the road, mostly after having made their last flight to Zweibrücken or Saarbrücken. (As is the case with many museums, obviously some of the aircraft suffer somewhat by being out in the open, but still it’s an interesting museum!)

(I won’t bother with adding aircraft types – most of you what is what anyway!)

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2497.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2508.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2507.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2512.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2513.jpg

Very rare: A civil Noratlas.
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2516.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2518.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2510.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2519.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2524.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2525.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2550.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2551.jpg


Fake warning! What appears to be a Concorde is not a Concorde. It’s am 1:1 scale model, a steel and wood structure with the outside appearance of a Concorde.
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2488.jpg


This Lufty Connie is significant. It’s the central point of the museum, being on exhibition there since 1980. This is the aircraft that took the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Moscow in 1955 to negotiate the release of the last 10,000 war prisoners.
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2540.jpg

[Flightwatch]

You omitted the Viscount - shame on you, Queen of the skies!!

[flugholm]

Oh, how could I!

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z136/flugholm/DSCN2517.jpg

[Flightwatch]

Thank you, she still looks good 60 years or so after the first flight. I spent 3.5k happy hours in her poling around the skies in the late 60s.

I too went to Hermeskeil last year and found it to be well worth the modest entry fee.

[flugholm]

Flightwatch
In fact my very first flight ever was with one of the beautiful BEA Viscounts. Autumn 1965 at age three months. HAJ-THF. Admittedly I don't recall a lot of it, and I didn't write down the flight numbers and reggies at that time.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Lord! Viscount, "beautiful" and "queen of the skies"???? :confused:

I suppose that beauty is in the eye...

But next to a Connie, Concorde, a Comet, Dak or VC10? Surely it's just a lumpen old utilitarian sit-up-and-beg turboprop with no grace, lines, style or visible charisma whatsoever... ;)

incoming!!

[Flightwatch]

Well, I suppose beauty is also to do with the whole experience of flying in an aircraft as well as the aesthetic lines. In the case of a Viscount my opinion is that it had pretty good lines once they did away with the eyesore of the little DV windows and large under belly air scoop of the early 700s. As for flying in the machine you had to compare it to the alternatives of the time – mostly Convair 240/340/440 or Daks. It was smooth enough to balance an old 3d coin on edge on the tray table and have it stay upright. It cruised in the mid levels above the worst of the turbulence, had huge picture windows to admire the passing scenery and a generous seat pitch which you could only dream about nowadays.

As a pilot it was extremely reliable, the Dart engines seldom gave any problems and the systems were rugged if rather old fashioned. It was pretty quiet in the cabin and only slightly noisier in the cockpit and if the prop synchronisers were properly used there was none of the droning audible as in other turboprops (to this day even). I frequently did 6 sector days amounting to 8 hours and never felt too fatigued especially compared to my colleagues who flew the Ambassador which could be compared to a large vibro-massage machine.

So yes – to me she was the Queen of the Skies – one of the few British post-war successes and a sea change in air travel for the flying public. The ultimate development as pictured above was pretty swift too and I am disappointed that such an icon of UK aeronautical development has only a couple of potentially flyable examples worldwide, neither of these of course in the UK.