This is the Air and Space Hall of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England. The building itself is a bit of an attraction, a former marketplace that's 134 years old.
Avro, one of Britain's legendary aircraft manufacturers, was founded here in Manchester. This is a replica of the Roe Triplane 1 from 1909, the first all-British airplane to fly.
The Avro Shackleton dominates the space, as most bombers do (though it's not technically a bomber). We'll get a better view from the other side in a few slides.
The Avro Shackleton was a maritime patrol aircraft developed from the Lincoln, which itself was based on the famous WWII Lancaster. Only 8 years separated the first flights of the Lancaster and the Shackleton. That's a lot of development for such a short time.
As cool as the old building was by acting as a counterpoint to the aircraft, the atmosphere was a bit... cool. Cold, in fact. They weren't big into insulation and triple-pane glass in the Victorian era, I guess.
Like most airliners of its era, the Trident needed three cockpit crew: pilot, copilot and engineer. Modern airliners only need the pilot and copilot, in part because of LCD screens.
Instead of a bombardier, the Shackleton had multiple lookout points, like the bubble at the front, for the crew to spot ships and surfaced submarines. For submerged subs, they had things like a magnetic anomaly detector, which sounds sci-fi to me, but is actually quite common.
Though I concentrated on the Air and Space Hall, the larger museum is cool too. Built into an old factory, here are the looms of its former life. Many of the museums exhibits ring this space.
Manchester was a boomtown during the industrial revolution and on display at the museum were numerous machines that were used during the time. Here is a Jacquard loom. I can't imagine how loud these buildings would be with dozens of these running.
The complex copper and steel, gears and linkages, pipes and wheels. It was all fascinating to look at, and even more amazing how revolutionary these were in their day. Perhaps there was a SteamNET newspaper that covered all the latest tech.
The Air and Space hall is in a 134-year-old building, originally the Lower Campfield Market. In the 13 decades since, it spent time as an exhibition hall, munitions and barrage balloon test site, and more. The Victorian architecture is what earned its Grade II listed status, and makes it one of the most interesting buildings I've seen housing an aviation museum.
While certainly not the biggest air museum in Britain (that's probably the RAF London Museum or Imperial War Museum Duxford), it was a fascinating detour. Oh, and it's free. Added bonus.
