14^th of November 2024

It was dry and a bit chilly for our Visit to Norwich Aviation Museum by 60 of us.  Once again, the staff were extremely welcoming and friendly.

We had the place to ourselves, which was just as well since we filled the Tearoom.

Normally it is an extra charge to have the aircraft opened up to climb over and into, but they included it into our price of £12/head.

G-BHMY the Fokker F27  which most of us knew well, was one of them and also an Irish registered RJ, extremely similar to the 146 300 Series. There was a complaint about the Captain’s seat adjustment on the F27, but there was no ramp engineer to fix it before the misguided visitor could set off on the afternoon AMS.

The military aircraft were something else and BALPA would not have approved any of them for us to operate.  If you tried  sitting in them, your agreement was wholehearted.

The English Electric Lightning required its sole pilot not to be taller than 5ft 8 inches and slim. They didn’t say so, but no legs would have been useful except for getting in and out. (Douglas Bader?) With one engine on top of the other, it was unlikely to have any yaw on an engine failure.

The interior of the Vulcan was repulsive (Adele’s opinion) and Health & Safety only seemed to apply to the front two crew, if you can consider an ejection seat a) healthy and b) safe.  If the rear crew decided to quit and the flight deck crew had been so inconsiderate as to lower the undercarriage, the rear crew were likely to descend what looked like a helter skelter and bounce off the nose gear.  Happy landings !!

The Museum was open from 1100 to 1600 (winter hours) and we used every minute.

We’ll be back. Thursday November 13^th 2025 to be precise.

Best Wishes

Adele Stephenson and Angie Angell