Solent Sky - Southampton's Aviation Museum

  A bus ride away from the centre of Southampton - and tucked away behind a semi-derelict building -  is the Solent Sky museum. In truth it's not the biggest museum I've ever been to but as we shall see, they manage to pack quite a lot into a building the size of a school gym.

The Museum from the outside.

Walk in through the gift shop and turn the corner and you suddenly get...

Wow.

   At this point I must admit that I have been here before. But since the last time I popped in I was using a camera that was on its last legs, I didn't really have any usable pics. This time I planned to rectify that.    
   The whole point of the museum is to celebrate the  aviation heritage of the local area. Flying boats military and civilian operated from the Solent and several aircraft companies had operations here, most famously Supermarine.  So naturally there's a Spitfire.

 An F24. Almost a completely different aircraft from the one that fought the Battle Of Britain.

 You also get the Spit's direct ancestor.

 The Schneider Trophy winning S6B.

 
There's some other rare stuff too. How often do you get to see a jet fighter flying boat?

This is the only surviving Saunders-Roe SR.A/1, designed to be used out in the Far East where airfields might conceivably be scarce. It's one of those delightfully bonkers concepts that tended to crop up in WW2. Wikipedia article Here

 This next aircraft isn't particularly rare - half the aviation museums in England seem to have one - but dammit, I'm a big fan of the De Havilland Sea Vixen so here it is.

 One US officer is reported to have said "Only you Brits would build an aircraft with that amount of thrust...

 ...and then give it that much built-in drag."

 Note that it isn't a trick of the light. The cockpit really is off-centre.  You can see it a bit better here.

  And looming over the entire collection you get the pride and joy of the museum. 

"Beachcomber" - a 1943 Short Sunderland patrol flying boat converted into a passenger-carrying Sandringham. (Info here)  If you look at the mannequin in the pic that should give you an idea as to how much aircraft we're talking about here.

It looms like a ...big loomy thing.

Much to my delight, you can climb aboard and poke about. Ask the staff nicely and they'll even take you up into the cockpit. This involves climbing up an alarmingly small ladder which was probably all kinds of fun on a boat swaying with the waves. 

I've got a photo of me sat in the co-pilots seat looking ever so pleased with myself. I'd post it if I wasn't marginally less photogenic than Wayne Rooney. 

 Coming back down I then had a potter about the passenger compartments - which are fitted with actual wood panelling - and I say compartments because there's more seats and a nifty little galley upstairs. 

 Yes, the Sandringham is a two-storey airliner. This impresses me.

 I've lived in places that had smaller kitchens than this.

Now picture a Hollywood star working in this kitchen.

The museum doesn't end there. Among the things hanging from the roof you get lifesize replicas of two peculiar little aircraft. 

The Wight Qudruplane.

Which seems to have been built purely to one-up the famous Fokker Triplane. Available evidence suggests the experiment was not a roaring success.

 And another aircraft with an interesting approach to wings  - the Mignet Pou De Ciel.

 Digging out my trusty copy of "The World's Worst Aircraft" reveals that this Gallic odditiy was designed to be built in garden sheds by enthusiastic amateurs and flown by brave nutcases.
Quite a lot of them crashed.

 That's a magnificent moustache sir.

 There is more to Solent Sky than what I've shown here - a few more aircraft, a nice little display of engines and more models than you can shake a stick at. There's even an interesting bit of modern art assembled from  stray bit of gun turret and engine. 

 To sum up: If you are ever in the vicinity of Southampton's Ocean Village nip over the road and have a look in Solent Sky. It's worth £6.50 and a chunk of your afternoon.

 Museum homepage here: http://www.solentskymuseum.org/

 That's all folks.