Manchester Museum of Science & Industry - May 2008

Had a day out at the Manchester Museum of Science & Industry. I have always been a bit partial to the collection of planes that they have in there - especially the Avro Shackleton (see below).....

I first started going to Manchester about 1989 when I used to go solely to visit the Odyssey 7 Comic Shop on Oxford Road (don't look for it - it's not there anymore). The skyline has seen a few changes since then - this is the new Hilton Tower that is famous for whistling in the wind, towering over the old LNER Goods Warehouse - now a multiscreen cinema....

The famous Shackleton - originally designed as an anti-submarine aircraft after the war, this was pushed into service as Airborne Early Warning  - it was in use in this role until... 1991! Of particular note are the twin bladed Rolls Royce Griffon engines - notorious for damaging the hearing of anyone who worked on them and having the rather worrying party-piece of ejecting their spark plugs through the cylinder heads. Like a lot of planes in the Cold War RAF, the Shackleton was always described as being just on the verge of being withdrawn.

 Shackleton from the rear and its bum does look big - I suppose they must have taken it apart to get into here. The Shack' was often described as "100,000 rivets flying in close formation".

Avro 707 - this plane spent a lot of its life zooming around the skies of Manchester and Boscombe Down as Avro (based nearby in Woodford) used several of these to test the 'Delta' wing concept for use in the immortal Avro Vulcan Bomber. This is basically a mini-me of the Vulcan.

Nose section of a Hawker Hunter - fairly useful RAF fighter that has probably saw more action with foreign air forces than any other UK built plane - including the infamous 1973 military coup in Chile (the one where a democratically elected socialist government was removed at the behest of the CIA).

Not actually an English Electric Lightning, but a P1B - an early prototype. Most notably, the Lightning required AVPIN (Aviation Pre-Ignition Fuel) to get the engine started - this was very dangerous stuff.

Supermarine Spitfire - not actually a fighter variant but a camera recon version (the camera is behind the H).

Some rotary wing craft for you now - a Bristol Sycamore Helicopter.

Blackburn Belvedere - incredibly thin, twin bladed helicopter.

With all of these brilliant British designs above (all of the aircraft above were designed and built here in the UK), I thought it would be nice to finish with the most embarrassing thing we have ever created as a nation (with the exception of Ant & Dec or Noel Edmonds). The Sinclair C5 - built by Clive Sinclair, obliterating all of the money he had made on the home computer, building an electric go-kart that NOBODY on earth wanted. Now, for some reason, a highly sought after collectors item. Sir Clive, step into my office. You're f**kin' fired.

< Click to go back.....