The trouble with (most) aircraft museums
 

Last week a group of Ppruners met up for lunch and a visit to the RAF Museum at Cosford. Without doubt it was a thoroughly enjoyable day out, and the collection at Cosford - particularly the experimental aircraft collection, was excellent.

But talking through it afterwards brought to the front of my mind some things that trouble me - where is the information about, and access to, these aircraft.


Now there is generally some basic information about when the aeroplane was built, and an indication of it's size, shape, speed, etc. Any famous pilots who flew the type might also get a mention - and quite right too.


But, for the serious student of aeronautics in it's more technical forms, there's usually nothing.

- What is the aircraft made from, who designed it, why was it designed that way?
- For the visiting pilot, why are virtually all cockpits in museums inaccessible? Okay, I accept the "souvenir hunter" problem, but £100 worth of thin perspex per cockpit should solve that.
- What was the aircraft like to operate?


Some years ago, as an undergraduate at Southampton University I used to regularly go and visit the Hall of Aviation in Southampton. This is one of the better museums for such information (I'm not saying perfect, but better) and I learned a lot that hopefully made me a better student and eventually a better Engineer. I can't help feel that a young Engineer visiting Cosford, Duxford, etc. would really leave little wiser than they arrived. Equally a young wanabee fighter or airline pilot, who'd really like to spend some time sitting and thinking about the "office" they are aiming for will be sorely dissapointed.

Is it that difficult? Surely all the information is fairly readily available, surely aviation museum curators don't really believe that everybody just comes to say "gosh, isn't it pretty - Douglas Bader flew one of those you know".

:confused:

G

Helicopter Museum
 

Last night I watched a Ch 4 or CH 5 programme on helicopters. Can someone tell me where the 'Helicopter Museum' is.Ta.

Weston Supermare.

G

Interesting thread which goes onto a related topic - allowing exhibits to be touched - can be found here. AdamK demonstrates what the average museum thinks their job is - preservation at all costs and gawd forbid people should get into a cockpit!!

Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle had a good policy when I was there. Stuff they didn't want touched was up on a wire or had a red hand saying "don't touch". Some had a green hand so you could climb all over whatever it was, sit in the seat, waggle the controls. Good fun.

I see something I don't know about in the museum I either BUY the book in the shop they have or research it myself. I've been reading all I can find about the Republic Seabee lately, and there is just astonishing variety of material free on the net (via Google).

Read a survey about museums in Flypast a while ago, the top 3 reasons somebody would go back to a museum:

;) Toilets clean,

;) Nice shop,

;) Car parking.

They could save a lot of money by implementing that and selling all the aeroplanes:8

Genghis,

From what I've heard, access to cockpits has H&S implications these days due to the (miniscule) risk of radiation from the radon paint in the instrument dials. Most museums seem to be of the unofficial opinion that this ruling is rather silly, as we all suffer larger amounts of radiation from our tv sets. Still, good old H&S insist that lines should be toed, so there you go.

However, for people who are serious about gaining access to the aircraft interiors for research purposes, there are usually ways of doing so. Usually best to contact the museums before travelling and arranging some supervised access; we must bear in mind that museum airframes are no longer working airframes but now historic artifacts and must be preserved as such, hence the apparent bar to letting the general public clamber all over them.

Hope that helps.

BeauMan

Last year the Museum of Flight at East Fortune in Scotland was forced to cancel its 'Open Cockpit' day for the reason BeauMan states, H & S determined that there was a radiation risk from the instruments.

When I commanded an ATC Sqn we had stacks of instruments, all of which were impounded and removed from the premises for health reasons; what about the poor sods who sat in front of them for thousands of hours?

Thanks for the thoughts, but I don't really buy it. There will always be some aircraft that need a great deal of protection (or the public protecting from it), but I don't accept that it's all or even the majority. Would it be impossible, for example, just to have steps up to an open cockpit, and a leaded glass liner keeping radioactivity in and people out?

But more importantly, If I can go to somewhere like the Roman Baths in Bath or CAT near Dolgellau (two of my favourite non-aviation museums), and see huge amounts of information about the exhibits and their uses, buy detailed documents about the history, technology, etc, all without having to make special appointments why not in an aircraft museum?

Basically if as somebody moderately knowledgeable but who has never studied the type deeply, and never worked on it, I can go to an aircraft museum and see rather less about a type - such as for example the Lightning, modified Jaguar and TSR-2 at Cosford, than I knew already then I think there's something wrong.

Yes I accept that for very deep access it's fair to expect visitors to ask and book. But that's no excuse in my opinion for not allowing ready sight into cockpits, fairly detailed technical information and explanation on display, available or on sale - and in many cases it isn't.

G

At Brussels I recall being able to have a gander in the cockpits of some of the exhibits - Mil 24 springs to mind; Also the Windsor Locks museum, I certainly recall being able to climb up on the P-47 via a walkway and have a peer, whilst at the Hiller Museum at San Mateo one can sit in an A-4 cockpit - tight, or what! I'm quite broad in the beam, but not what you'd call tall - hell of a small place to go to war in. You can also walk/crawl through Kermit's B-17 at Polk City.

Notice that they are all abroad to us Brits?

In terms of info, I've always felt that the info boards at some museums are way too brief. I think a technical summary and specs, a potted history of the type, and a potted history of the individual aircraft on display are essential...

I agree. I can sometimes learn quite a lot by looking at the control surfaces, understanding the way things fit together and how they work. But there's nothing like getting up front and imagining yourself taking the controls.

Fortunately, it doesn't apply to every museum. Take a look here, where you'll find pictuers of PPRuNers climbing on, in and under various aircraft. Many of the pictures are just showing as a red cross in my browser - not sure if that's because my firewall has blocked them, or they've been removed from their host websites, but there are still a few interesting ones there.

FFF
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In my (limited) experience of aircraft museums, the one at Coventry does seem very unusual in that most of the cockpits can be accessed. This does depend on how many volunteers are around, the weather and the number of visitors... but often you can be lucky. I managed to break a bit of a door on one while I was volunteering there, and the response from the management was "oh dear, never mind, we'll fix it" - how refreshing! Of course a careful eye is kept on 'fiddlers', but it just goes to show it IS possible.

The Health and Safety issue is the main reason a lot of museums do not open the aircraft up. I've been involved in museums for a number of years and the crowds we used to get for our Open Cockpit days were amazing. Unfortunately the slippery slope was - "they might fall off the tower giving them access to the aircraft" then the H&S issue over the instruments (which is ridiculous but who is going to run the risk?). Then we had the "they've got pointy bits people could walk into" argument. Unfortunately our litigation culture has meant that we have to keep people well away from the exhibits - which is very depressing:rolleyes: Sadly the best way to find out about all the interesting bits of an aircraft is to go and have a poke around!

Perhaps some enterprising museum will take the plunge and install closed circuit TV in the cockpits that you could control from outside. Then for putting your coin in the slot you could carry out your own detailed visual inspection without any of the problems of allowing real access. Not as good as sitting in it but much better than nothing surely?

The Scottish Sea-Bird centre at Berwick does this with the Gannet / Puffin colony at Bass rock. Good fun, and avoids the smell too!

G

I must have been very lucky:

Hiller Museum near San Francisco has a 747 nose section, that a retired UAL Captain kindly showed me around. Although it was the one Boeing product he hadn't flown, he was truly informative and gave some insight into the operations of such a beast.

Castle Museum (outside the Bay Area) usually has volunteers that can give you some narrative about the aircraft, along with a simple pamphlet with historical info and data.

Without such experiences, the planes are still beautiful, but far less understood or appreciated.

Like I said, I must be lucky.......

IMHO the museums probably think that the great unwashed don't want to know such detail, so it would be wasted on all but the most serious enquirer - and the larger museums of course don't have the resources to have a volunteer at each exhibit to explain to anyone who cares to ask the intricacies of the beast on display.

A friend of mine who is not aviation related but very well-educated was shown around a supersonic jet in a museum in the States; the guide described shock waves and other phenomena but my friend had to admit that it all went way above her head.

As to the H+S issue, I didn't realise that people had got so worried about radioactive paint on instrument dials; I guess my Boost gauge had better stay in the loft! I can understand how the larger museums can't allow access to cockpits of fighter aircraft in case some little tyke cuts himself - there are lots of sticky out bits. The smaller collections seem to have avoided that one - I have a wonderful photo of Nopax junior piloting a Mirage in a French hangar back in '98...

Radioactive paint
 

To be fair, do a search on the subject "Radioactive Boy Scout" on any convenient search engine and you'll see what potential glowing instrument dials have.

G

I had the privilege of attending a fly in at Wroughton just before the PFA rally moved there. As it turned out the weather was foul so not many aircraft turned up. This however turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the few of us that had arrived by road were taken on a guided tour of the exhibits, including the cockpits of the Connie and Comet. I doubt very much that the current regime would allow that now.
In the light of what I now know is going to happen at Wroughton it may explain why shortly after the Breitling Orbiter flight, the Piccard stratosphere balloon was left languishing in a corner covered in dust. It wouldn't have taken much to brush it down and put a sign on it. little things like that can help enthuse people about the exhibits and help bring history to life.

Having said that the conservation staff based at Wroughton are a good bunch who are horribly frustrated by the way the collection is being treated by the Kensington maffia!

A very interestng thread. European museums seem a little more uptight than North American ones.

In my experience at the Canadian National Collection in Rockcliffe, the Warplane Museum in Hamilton, the Western Aviation Museum in Winnipeg, and some smaller museums in Alberta, the staff will take the time to answer questions, or find answers, when the crowds permit. Once they know you have some interest and knowledge, they will often let you poke around inside - but they never leave me alone :).

About 20 years ago at Rockcliffe, I asked a guide if I could take a good look up the nose well of a recently retired CF-100. At the time, I worked for the manufacturer of the nose wheel steering system, and I wanted to see the mod status and state of wear on what was one of the last flying Clunks. The guide asked me why I was interested, I explained, he let me inside the ropes, and then he went and got a tech from the restoration shop who had worked on the gear in the RCAF. We had a grand discussion!

I think the main point here is that the guides/guards will make an effort, when time permits. What all museums need is more volunteers, preferably with some knowledge of the exhibits. All you Prunners should have the knowledge, and you seem to have time to waste at the computer. Get out there and volunteer! Now, if somebody would just open an aviation museum in near me...

A couple of years ago 2 aircraft that I am a volunteer with were moved and incorporated into a hovercraft show. We allowed members of the public full access to both aircraft (under supervision and in small groups) and had a very good 4 days.
We removed any loose items to prevent them going 'walkies' and neither aircraft suffered any damage from having the public onboard.

We still get visitors on a regular basis (by prior arrangement) so anybody is welcome.