Brooklands Museum

I'm sure many of you already know of the Brooklands Museum and some of you will have visited it and admired the large collection of aeroplanes and cars.

There is much there for the 'Hawker' enthusiast. Outside are a Danish Hunter, a two-seat Hunter in ETPS livery and the 6th Hawker P.1127, XP984. This historic aircraft was restored as the Dunsfold 'gate guardian' but when the airfield was closed British Aerospace transferred the aircraft to the Museum.

In the hangar is HSA's two-seat Harrier demonstrator, well known by its civil registration G-VTOL. Close by is a Sopwith Camel replica built to full flying standard, and nearing completion is a Hawker Fury biplane full-scale reconstruction for static display. The late Robin Balmer was responsible for creating the drawings for this beautiful example of Sydney Camm's art. In the Engine Exhibition are examples of engines used to power Hawker types, including a Rolls-Royce Kestrel and a Merlin.

Less well known than the 'hardware' is the fact that Brooklands houses an ever growing aviation archive of material relating to Companies that have a Brooklands association. This, of course, includes Sopwith and Hawker Aircraft Ltd and by extension HSA and BAe Kingston and Dunsfold. Your Editor is in charge of this section of the archives and spends many fascinating hours there sorting and listing reports, drawings, photographs, correspondence, press cuttings, brochures and even models and parts.

Several Hawker colleagues have donated or loaned valuable material that they have saved from the 'skip', and when Dunsfold closed BAe chose Brooklands as the home for its historic items. The archive is particularly strong in the V/STOL area covering the P.1127 from inception through prototypes to Kestrel, Harrier and Harrier II. Several authors and TV film makers have used material from here.

If your nearest and dearest is fed up with those old files and boxes cluttering up the house, you can be sure that your treasures will find a good home at Brooklands. Just give me a call.(01483 825955).