On 14 May, a Grumman EA-6B Prowler was delivered to the Hickory Aviation Museum in North Carolina from the US Marines Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 1 (VMAQ-1). The Prowler is an amazing aircraft, but not perhaps the prettiest (!) and not one seen often exhibited in aviation...
This is a rather technically impressive 360-degree AR tour of submarine HMAS Onslow, moored at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. Onslow was one of six Oberon-class submarines operated by the Royal Australian Navy. She was built in Scotland and commissioned in 1968. The...
This Dreidecker (“triplane”) is a reproduction at the Luftwaffe Museum in Gatow. According to Wikipedia, 320 of these machines were built, but only three are thought to have survived WW1. Serial 528/17 was retained as a testbed by the Deutschen Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (German Aviation Research Institute)...
The designers of the London Eye and Brighton i360 are involved in a spectacular new project for Chicago. The Chicago Skyline project – a new aerial cable car tourist attraction – was launched earlier this month by local businessmen, Lou Raizin and Laurence Geller, with plans from...
I’ve long meant to pay Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s maritime masterpiece a visit, and I wasn’t disappointed. The Potted History Brunel must have been a commandingly persuasive man because somehow he got the Great Western Steamship Company to approve two serious departures from normal shipbuilding techniques for their...
The Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor has started restoration work on one of the planes that attacked them on December 7, 1941. The Nakajima B5N Torpedo Bomber was the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy and was considered the most effective aircraft of its kind at the...
Five minutes into our day long ‘Mountains and Mines’ trip*, Paul Harris delivered the bad news – we wouldn’t be able to go down the coal mine today. Dang! It was to have been the highlight (well, lowlight technically) of the trip. I’d tried once before. A...
The classic sail ship cruise line, Star Clippers, has a new square-rigger currently under construction at Brodosplit shipyard in Split, Croatia. Steel cutting for ‘Hull 483’ – whose name, announced this week, is to be: Flying Clipper – commenced in last September. When she is completed in...
A small 400 sq metre museum is being added to the Thiepval Memorial Visitor Centre in Picardy, France. The opening will be a prelude to the Centenary commemorations of the Battle of the Somme, the iconic battle on the 1st July 1916 which was the bloodiest day for...
Given Berlin’s Cold War role as the “capital of spies”, it seems only fitting that it should now host the only museum in Germany dedicated to the dark world of espionage. The surprise is that it has taken this long. The Spy Museum, located in Potsdamer Platz,...
BF110F-2 Werknummer 5052 is on display in the Deutsches Technikmuseum, Berlin. This aircraft served with 13./Zerstörergruppe JG5 at KemiJarvi, Finland during 1943. On January 11, it was damaged by train-mounted flak while flying a four plane mission against railway lines between Murmansk and Leningrad. Pilot Helmut Ziegenhagen...
75mm Airborne M1A1 Pack Howitzer (1942) designed to be dropped into battle with airborne troops. This one was used by 1st Airlanding Light Artillery Regiment, Royal Artillery, at Arnhem bridge September 1944 where it was damaged (see broken tow ring). It is now in the Royal Artillery...
Odd name. The Percival Pembroke was a British light transport aircraft built between 1953-1958 by the Percival Aircraft Company, which later became ‘Hunting Percival’. They are quite rare. Only 128 were built. This one, a C-54 variant built for the German Luftwaffe is at the Militärhistorisches Museum...
Truthfully? the Soane Museum is not somewhere I would have visited normally. Art history, or in this case, architecture history, is outside my core interest zone. To make matters worse, the visit did not start well, and I was irritated from the off. I don’t like queuing,...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
COPYRIGHT © MECHTRAVELLER 2016-2025, including all images unless indicated otherwise.
