RAF Museum

The Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum has been on our list of places to visit for quite some time. However by public transport it takes about an hour and a half with a combination of trains and buses. Given this, we decided it would be better to wait until we had a car to visit.  The first day of the August bank holiday weekend was rainy so the day had finally come.  We rented a car and drove out.

K could hardly contain himself when we walked into the first hangar.  It was full of airplanes in the air and on the ground.  Talk about a grin ear to ear.  And if I'm not mistaken, J had one too.

Not surprisingly, the kids favorite was the American plane, the P51D "Mustang", with Donald Duck painted on its side.


We walked around for a couple of hours checking out the various airplanes.  We also watched a movie (a couple of times) on the bouncing bomb which was very, very cool. We ate lunch at the museum restaurant and I spotted this poster on the wall.  It was made for J!  We tried looking for it in the gift shop but unfortunately it was not for sale.

The museum was made up of five different hangars and my favorite was the Grahame-White Hangar which was the site of the UK's first aircraft factory, purpose built in 1917.  The planes in the hangar were all from that same era and the craftmanship that went into the planes was so impressive.  From someone who doesn't like planes (or at least not flying in one), I thought these were just beautiful.

At some point it all just got a bit overwhelming (plane, after plane, after plane) so I took C & K to the kids play area while J explored a bit more.  The kids area had lots of interactive games helping to explain how flight works.  There were also a few planes that the kids could sit in.


Our favorite was the airdrop game.  One person controlled the plane speed & crane and tried to drop the cargo on a spot on the floor.  The rest of the kids were below trying to catch the cargo.