La Coupole is one of the giant concrete constructions* built by the Germans in France during World War 2. It was designed to be a combined assembly and launch facility for Hitler’s V2 rockets. Its colossal, 72m diameter reinforced concrete domed roof was 5.5m thick and designed...
The home of the Netherlands Mariniers (‘Marines’) has always been Rotterdam, so no surprise that the corps’ museum should be in the historic heart of the city. It hasn’t there long. The first attempt to create a collection of historic Mariniers artifacts was at their barracks on...
It wasn’t just any civilian*, it was one of America’s most famous celebrities at the time, Charles A. Lindbergh. Lindbergh, famous for making the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in his single-engined Spirit of St Louis aircraft in 1927, wasn’t supposed to...
The Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (REME) museum re-opened in June last year at MOD Lynham in Wiltshire. The corps has had a museum since 1958. It was originally a small collection located in a few rooms at Moat House in REME’s base at Arborfield outside Reading....
This is an interesting standalone exhibit in one of the outbuildings on the Beaulieu estate (site of the National Motor Museum) in the New Forest. It’s a Welbike – a small, parachuteable, motorbike designed for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in WW2. As the blurb in the...
The home of the Museum of the Infantry Regiments of Berkshire and Wiltshire is The Wardrobe* – one of the splendid 15th century buildings on The Close that surround Salisbury Cathedral. For that reason, and because British Army regiments have a habit of amalgamating, merging, emerging and...
What was the average failure rate of aerial bombs in the Second World War, and whose were better – the USAAF, RAF, Luftwaffe, Russian VVS, Regia Aeronautica, or maybe Japan’s IJAAS? I’m wondering because I came across an interesting statistic in Ian McLachian’s book of Eighth Air...
The long-awaited reopening of The Museum of War and Peace took place in Novion-Porcien in the French Ardennes at the end of last month, in this 100th anniversary year of the conclusion of The First World War. The French Ardennes has been at the heart of European...
Work is starting this year on a £5m museum to tell the story of the Royal Navy in Plymouth. It’s part of a 12-year plan by the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) to highlight the role and heritage of its branches in their key locations....
The Royal Navy decommissioned its last Westland Lynx helicopter in March last year, and the British Army Air Corps is about to do the same. The twin-engined multi-role Lynx began service with the Army in 1979 and the Fleet Air Arm in 1981. Its ability to hunt...
Imperial War Museum (IWM) – Duxford is primarily an aircraft museum, but the westernmost building is not, like the others, a giant hanger full of aircraft. Instead it is where the lion’s share of the IWM’s military vehicle collection is displayed – in the Land Warfare building....
Despite Menorca’s key military position in the 17th-19th centuries, I hadn’t really expected too much from the Museu Militar de Menorca in Es Castell, but it’s actually rather good. Like many islands in the Mediterranean, Menorca was a fortress and its military history reflects that, not only...
It seems almost inconceivable that the United States Army doesn’t have a national museum! Everyone else has one. The Marines have one, the Air Force has one, the Navy has one… hell, even Navy Aviation and US Army Aviation have them! Most countries have one. I’ve been...
"To be of full value to its user, a parachute must inspire absolute and implicit confidence in its correct functioning." - Air Ministry Manual. A masterclass in under-statement!
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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