A tour of the fabulous contents of the aeronautical museum at RAF Cosford

@ElentirENG ES 3·15·2023 · 23:43 0

The British Royal Air Force (RAF) has an interesting network of museums. The two main ones are in London and at RAF Cosford, in Shropshire, England.

Air Park Zruč: a winter visit to an aircraft and tank museum in the Czech Republic
A veteran of the Spanish Navy in an aviation museum in the capital of Thailand

The RAF museum in London was opened in 1972, and the Cosford museum opened in 1979. The latter is located next to an active airbase. Its hangars house dozens of military and civilian aircraft from different eras , both British and other nations, as well as military land vehicles. This museum has the luxury of having all three types of RAF V nuclear bombers: Vulcan, Valiant and Victor. There are also planes from both sides of the Second World War, among which we must highlight an original German Messerschmitt Me-262A Schwalbe jet fighter. There are also different types of missiles, among them a V-1 flying bomb and a V-2 rocket, both original.

The RAF Cosford museum is an example of good display of materials and well-used space: part of its planes are hung from the ceiling with steel cables. A month ago, Reece Mccarron posted an interesting video in which she walks through inside this museum:

You can see below a small selection of the many aircraft that can be seen in the video. Here we see one of the prototypes of the BAC TSR-2, the XR220, a supersonic attack aircraft from 1964, an ambitious project frustrated by a budget cut in 1965. Only two units remain: this one and the XR222, which is in the Imperial War Museum in Duxford.

A World War II Boulton Paul Defiant I fighter, N1671. This plane belonged to the Polish 307th Squadron of the RAF, which is why it bears the emblem of the Polish Air Force.

A Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me 262A-2A fighter. This aircraft is the VK893, and as I noted above, it is an original WWII fighter (Czechoslovakia also made this model after the war ).

A German V2 rocket from World War II. It is one of only four surviving rockets of this type in the UK.

A World War II German Junkers Ju-88R-1 bomber, 360043. It is one of only two intact bombers of this type in the world. The aircraft on display in this museum was captured after landing in Aberdeen, Scotland, on May 9, 1943. In the background on the left we see a German Messerschmitt Me-410A-1/U2 fighter, 420430 This aircraft was captured in Vaerlose, Denmark, and like the Ju-88, it is one of only two surviving Me-410s in the world.

An RAF Hawker Siddeley Vulcan B.2 bomber , the XM598. This aircraft was part of the RAF 44 Squadron and participated in Operation Black Buck during the Falklands War.