RAF museum at Cosford, The

England is a museum-rich country; the benefit for the aviation enthusiast is the relatively close proximity of its flight museums to one another. American visitors, at least, will find the distances small when gauged against what they are used to. Within a 50-mile radius of London, you can visit the RAF Museum at Hendon in north London, which covers the history of flying in the UK with special attention given to the airwar of WW II, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, where a fascinating panorama of both British and American aircraft (many in flying condition) is on view and the Shuttleworth Collection (featured in the October 1999 issue of Flight Journal), which houses one of the finest collections of early aircraft anywhere. Further north is a museum that has long stood in the shadows of its more famous peers: the RAF Museum at Cosford. It is situated close to the city of Birmingham, approximately 140 miles northwest of London.

Cosford is a different type of aviation museum-one which has collections unavailable elsewhere in the world. Known as the Aerospace Museum of the West Midlands, the Cosford Museum houses static exhibits that view history in a forward-looking way; Cosford concentrates on prototype aircraft and missiles, though it does offer up some out-of-the-ordinary historic aircraft. Here, you won't find the usual selection of Mustangs, Bf 109s, B-17s, B-25s and Lancasters, but instead, genuine Japanese aircraft, some unusual German planes and the finest assemblage anywhere of missiles that date from the early 1940s. The most fascinating aircraft are exhibited in one hall, where you can see many of the prototypes and experimental models that have helped to shape the present and to predict future trends in both civilian and military flying.

The museum is housed in three large hangars that formed part of the original airfield at Cosford. Only a part of the airbase has been turned over to the museum; the remainder is still used by the RAF as a training facility. On arrival, you enter the complex through the Visitor Center, which opened in 1998 and is designed in the shape of a biplane with a replica Bleriot monoplane hanging from its roof. For special occasions, this area can be converted into a dining hall for 500, but during the museum's visiting hours it contains a restaurant and gift shop. Also within the Center are conference facilities, as a majority of the Museum's activities consist in encouraging group tours and providing educational material.

Passing through the Center, you reach Hangar 2, home of the weird and the wonderful; prototypes and pure research machines are shown here. The Avro 707C delta-wing experimental of 1947, which explored the delta-wing configuration for the projected Avro Vulcan bomber and had electrical fly-by-wire controls, sits close to the Bristol 188 of 1962, which is built entirely of stainless steel and explored the effect of speeds up to Mach 1.88 on structures. Preliminary exploration for the Concorde supersonic airliner configuration was carried out on the Fairey FD 2, a high Mach number delta-wing research plane that had the first "droop snoot"-to provide the pilot with a better view at high angles of attack, when landing and taking off.

Dominating the Hangar 2 display is one of the only two remaining TSR 2s (the intended Tactical Strike Reconnaissance replacement for the Canberra); the other is at the Duxford Museum. This mold-breaking aircraft offered the RAF a huge potential with its supersonic capability and the ground-following radar that enabled it to operate efficiently at both high and low altitudes. However, in 1964, the British government ordered the whole project to be scrapped and all the jigs, tools and plans destroyed, so there would be no chance of reviving the project.

Other noteworthy planes in Hangar 2 are prototypes of the Gloster Meteor (the only Allied combat jet of WW II), the supersonic English Electric Lightning and a Meteor with an extended nose that contains a cockpit for a prone pilot. Not surprisingly, the project was abandoned. You would have to pity that poor pilot!

Passing into Hangar 3, you come to the museum's collection of war planes, encompassing not only the inevitable Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, but also the only Messerschmitt Me 410 twin-engine fighter/bomber in existence, an Me 262 twin-jet fighter and an Me 163 rocket-powered fighter. The high point of this assemblage, however, is a trio comprising the only known surviving examples of two WW 11 Japanese aircraft. They are a Kawasaki Ki-100 lb single-seat fighter, a Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah" twin-engine bomber. An MXY-7 (the third) later known as the Yokosuka Ohka Kamikaze rocket-powered machine was airlaunched for its single flight-intended to send it crashing onto the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier. These three exhibits have proved to be of great interest to Japanese tourists-one of whom was an original pilot of the Dinah.

Also in this hangar are two of five American planes in the museum. They are not, however, displayed in U.S. markings. One is a Republic P-47D-40, built in Evansville, Indiana, in 1945, that served with the National Guard before being transferred to the Yugoslav Air Force. It was restored in the U.K. by the Fighter Collection before being donated to the Cosford Museum. This Thunderbolt-known in the RAF as a Thunderbolt 2-is displayed in the colors of 30 Squadron RAF and now bears blue and white roundels (instead of its original red, white and blue) to signify it served in the Pacific theater of operations. The other is a PBY-6A Catalina amphibian that was built in 1945 and served in the U.S. Navy until 1957. It was sold to the Royal Danish Air Force-in whose colors it is shown-and renumbered L866. During its period of service in Denmark, L866 was damaged after hitting an iceberg, but it was repaired and continued to fly until 1974. Recently, L866 was reunited with its Danish pilot, much to his great joy and excitement.