UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - RAF Museum

Fittingly there were a couple of iconic WWII fighter aircraft to greet visitors at the entrance to the RAF Museum in Hendon, the famous Spitfire and Hurricane.  These examples never saw active service though as they were made of plastic!

The military museum is spread over multiple halls and hangers.  The first one we entered was the awesome Milestones of Flight Hall, with quite a mixture of aircraft from different eras, some of which were suspended from above as if in flight.  We found...

...it difficult to get back far enough to get all the larger aircraft in the frame sometimes, here's our effort with the Harrier GR3 jump jet, held aloft.

The interactive displays dotted around the Milestones of Flight Hall helpfully identified the exhibits as demonstrated by these visitors to the RAF Museum.

Here's the engrossing picture wall Timeline at Hendon's RAF Museum which contained a complete history of aviation from 1900 to 2004, year by year.

Next up was the Bomber Hall and this Wellington bomber dominated the scene as we entered.  Can you spot the airman up the ladder checking the engine?

The B24 Liberator was an aircraft used mainly by RAF bomber squadrons in the Middle East and Far East.  This exquisite example was from the Indian Air Force.

This is a B17 Flying Fortress, mainly used by the Americans in Europe and the Pacific, with 200 being used by the RAF.  Now, where's Belinda got to...

At the rear of the colourful B17 was a mock up of the American air crew boarding for a flight, you can just see a hunky military guy scrambling in the door.  Huh...  Who's that?  Come out of there Belinda!

Now here's the famous Lancaster bomber displayed in the RAF Museum's Bomber Hall, one of 7377 of these aircraft that were built.  We learnt Lancasters averaged twenty-one missions before being lost.

Onto the Historic Hangers section at the Hendon RAF Museum, this actual BAe Tornado GR1A was used in Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War in 1991.  Helicopters were also displayed in this area.

After World War Two the McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR2 was used as interceptor fighters over UK air-space for a while.  After the impressive Historic Hangers we moved on to...

...the guided tour of the Battle of Britain Hall at Hendon and here's a scene depicting an area where a devastating bomb has hit during WWII.

Here's our knowledgeable RAF Museum guide telling us all about radar development during the Second World War, after which we found out all about...

...the clever German Enigma cipher machine, used to encrypt secret messages during WWII.  It used a number of rotors to produce continually changing text but British code breakers at Bletchley Park famously managed to crack the code and shorten the war.

This is the iconic Spitfire (Mk I) in the Battle of Britain collection at Hendon which also contained enemy aircraft.  The highlight of our RAF Museum visit was the superb 'Our Finest Hour' audio visual presentation that brought the Battle of Britain vividly to life.

Finally at Hendon's RAF Museum we admired the massive Sunderland MR5 flying boat.  It was used in front line service for over 20 years, 749 were built and after WWII they were used to shift 4847 tons of freight during the mammoth Berlin Airlift operation.

The RAF Museum website is in our UK tourist resources.

Here's the view inside the Sunderland, which was the last flying-boat operated by the Royal Air Force.

Well, you've probably gathered we enjoyed a brilliant day out at London's RAF Museum in Hendon, which has free admission!