Trip to Brooklands & meeting a Wellington Mk1a (with Pegasus engine) in the flesh (as it were)

Took a trip to Brooklands yesterday, £10 for 5 hours exploring their collection of racing & vintage cars, motor bikes, cycles, buses & planes.

I even saw their prized Wellington Mk1a up close & personal complete with its (this comment is for Za lol) 'roundy' Pegasus engine . This particular Wellington was recovered from Loch Ness & is mostly in tact except for its linen skin. It was interesting to see the geodectic design and I took plenty of pics to use as reference so that I know what I'm looking at when I find the wreck of x3757 (see I'm being positive 'when' not 'if' lol).

More pics to comes.

 

More Brooklands pics

They have a shed with loads of engines in and a Stratospheric chamber.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Thank you for sharing, it's been a few years since I visited, money well spent I seem to remember.

 

More pics, with one of my in the pilot's seat of a Vickers Varsity

 

Lovely photos Nicola. Thanks for sharing.

 

Excellent photographs.

Glad you enjoyed your day out and can now spot which engines are fitted.

Regards
Tom

 

Here are the pics of the Wellington recovered from Loch Ness. They also have a cockpit of a Wellington set up with manikins that you can go in.

 

Final lot

I thought the plane identification book was interesting, given the conversation the other day about can you tell a Wellington Mk2 or Mk3 under battle conditions?

There's also the gun emplacement I think it is, on Members' Hill, the concrete tower behind the brick buildings of the Members' Restuarant

 

Someone's having a great time

 

Whatever gave you that idea Za? lol lol

 

Nicola, Those photos were very interesting, Didn't realise they had a Wellington there. Would you say that the site, particularly the aircraft areas, are reasonably Wheelchair friendly? You have caused me to revived a plan I had some years ago - to take my father back there.
As I have posted previously, he was building Wimpeys (Wellingtons) there in 1940 when the factory was bombed (interrupting his dinner break) causing him to end up in hospital for some time. Incidentally, prior to the war he worked at the Hawker factory and recalls watching the racing drivers practicing on the circuit.
Dont know if the journey down might be a bit much for him [from near Middlesbrough on the North East coast] might have a look at the possibility of the train.

Noel

 

HI Noel, I would say that most of the site would be accessible. The main club house and the various car sheds are all wheelchair friendly, as is the Wellington shed, although obviously he wouldn't be able to go inside the cut off Wellington they have with the mannikins. The bus museum is also very accessible and the main compound is as well.

The bit where Concorde is, is also wheel chair friendly. By the way, if you want to go on that you have to pay at the ticket office, you can't get a ticket at the door of the plane. This however isn't disabled accessible.

The bit that might prove a little more bumpy is the open field where all the other planes are. Its kind of grassy in places and gravelly. But they do have plastic track stuff down to make it easier for wheel chairs, but might need require a bit of elbow grease to get a chair over the bumps.

The cafe is also accessible and they have a disabled toilet.

Its near Mercedes Benz World and there is a hotel there that you could stay in, or perhaps one in nearby Weybridge.

The actual track itself is also accessible, but a little bumpy in places, due to the bad nature of some of the concrete, more elbow grease required here .

By the way the old entrance was called Members Hill & you accessed it from the Brooklands Road, but they've lost control of the road and have had to reduce traffic there so for most visitors you have to go to Mercedes benz, drive round the back, park up & walk over a bridge to get to the Museum. However if you chat up the young lad on the gate (like I did ), he will probably let you in at Members Hill as your father is disabled

 

Also, would he know which Wimpys he worked on? Did he keep records? I'm hoping to find information and even photos of my uncle's plane, X3757.

 

The Wimpy's in a lot better condition than when I last saw it there! It hadn't long arrived then.

I didn't realise the Assegai lived at Brooklands these days, either. Last time I saw that was at Goodwood in - I think - 2003. Lovely little car built for South African national F1 races. Nice picture of the Talbot too.

 

I didn't realise the Assegai lived at Brooklands these days, either. Last time I saw that was at Goodwood in - I think - 2003. Lovely little car built for South African national F1 races. Nice picture of the Talbot too.

Err I'll take your word for it, I just took pics of cars I liked lol. And the black jalopy car that looks like the children's book Gumdrop was parked in the car park