RAF Museum Cosford - Open Cockpits Day

Tuesday 7th of February saw the RAF Museum at Cosford open some of its cockpits to visitors resulting a long queues for some of the  more iconic aircraft such as the Valiant, Victor and Belfast.

Normally I would take my cameras, but on this occasion I left them at home and arrived with a fully charged smartphone and a spare battery. The cameras inside modern day smartphones offer a good resolution and can be more flexible in close quarters compared to the DSLR. They also tend to have quite a wide angle lens giving more subject coverage. 

The first Valiant picture is a case in point. It was taken through the three inch gap between the captain's ejection seat and the side wall of the cockpit. 

Ray Ball, Clifford Hill and I were there to take advantage of this opportunity that does not comes to pass very often. Here are some of the resulting images.

Vickers Valiant - Cockpit

Vickers Valiant - Nav positions

Bomb Aimers position and access hatch

Shorts Belfast C1 Cockpit

Shorts Belfast C1 Engineer's Panel

Hunting Jet Provost (and my left knee)

Hunting Jet Provost Cockpit

Avro York C1 Flight Deck

Avro York C1 Navigator position

Avro York C1 

Bristol T-188

From here on you will recognise the aircraft hence a lack of captions.

Guy Gibson's De Havilland DH-98 Mosquito

  

Recently arrived from sister museum at RAF Hendon, the Junker Ju-88

Recently arrived from sister museum at RAF Hendon, the Junker Ju-88

Recently arrived from sister museum at RAF Hendon, the Junker Ju-88

 

Odd one out in RAF Museum, Royal Navy Sea Balliol

Partners in crime Ray and Clifford

RAG member Patrick Fitzgerald old mount, XV202

RAG member Patrick Fitzgerald old mount, XV202

A not very good maximum zoom picture of the Jaguars after the aircraft handling sessions of the day.

So the day ended with witnessing some ground running Jaguars being put to bed for the day after the day's aircraft ground handling training sessions.

All in all it was worthwhile visiting this special day at the RAF Museum Cosford and my thanks to Ray for safely driving Cliff and myself there and back and to both of them for their company.

Theo Claassen

20 February 2017