RAF Museum

Finally, finally got myself up 'North' to the RAF Museum at Hendon today.
Finally because I been in London long enough to have gone sooner and finally because this morning's northern line was playing silly buggers - terminated at Hampstead, then Golders Green and then at last Colindale.
Not sure what Dad & I were expecting (apart from planes obviously) but in the spirit of leave I found myself absorbed by colours, markings, aerodynamic lines and the simplicity/complexity of man's engineering abilities. Aeroplanes for the forces tend to have one purpose - destruction of the enemy - but putting this aside they are feats of mechanical genius. I undersell this theory by likening them to houses - each architect has the basics and then designs accordingly. So it is with planes, the basic wings and tails but each an individuals ideal made reality - well it used to be. Now-a-days one plane fits all - that is of course once its been agreed by the allied countries building it. As much as the day was about learning new things it was also about nostalgia - aircraft we have seen in the skies. Airshows we have been too. There is one major problem with a museum - everything is static and on a midweek day like today, apart from the odd group of school kids - it is eerily quiet. Part of the thrill with these machines is seeing them alive - hearing them whistle over head.

There were a good selection of types fighters, bombers, and an entire hanger devoted to planes considered 'milestones' (so much for escaping work!) in aeronautical history.

We pootled back down a much quicker northern line to Charing Cross and got a beer and food in Covent Garden - after depositing my dad on the 7.11pm train I headed once more for the tube. There is something wonderfully liberating about being on a tube dressed in mufti on a day off watching the 'commuters' suited, tired and drowning in newspapers and books on the way home. I look like that normally, but this evening I was brighter and more observant. Days off are great - especially when you do something that cements your core self and bonds you closer to those that matter. Cheers Pops for giving to me your sense of interest - can't pretend to know as much but standing under the Vulcan's wing I felt the hairs on my neck stand on end... pure joy!