Duxford Air Museum Photos

In early June Alan Johnson and I went to the huge air museum at Duxford, not far from Cambridge. It reminds me very much of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Not only does it have a great collection of aircraft, but it also has many other war exhibits relating to Great Britain. Here are some photos from that visit.The first Concorde, test model.
Concorde Interior.
Messerschmitt

Alan in front of display honoring English servicemen in the Malaya Campaign. He fought there in the early fifties.
This B-17 was used in 'The Memphis Belle' movie.
It still has one side decorated to that effect.
Lancaster--the greatest British bomber.
Mosquito--the greatest recon aircraft of the war.

Another Messerschmitt
V-1 Rocket and Launch Pad.
B-24 Liberator---Lovely plane.
Rommel's staff car.
Montgomery's mobile field office.

Top Ten Bombers

And the winner is.....? (According to the Military Channel's 'Top Ten Bombers' show)

The Military Channel had a show on last night in which it attempted to analyze and rank the top ten bombers. It was a great show and it is an interesting and thought-provoking list. The planes were ranked on such things as service life, armament, fear factor, defensive armament, range, innovation, etc.

I have no argument with the ranking of the Boeing B-52 as the top bomber of all time. After all, it has been in continuous service for over fifty years. However, I was a little surprised that the venerable Boeing B-17 was ranked tenth on the list. The top four were: B-52, B-2, B-29 and Mosquito--all great planes. The B-17 was ranked low because of its short service life (only really used in WWII, while the B-29 was used in Korea as well) and relatively small bomb load.

The list and arguments are to be found at the Military Channel's website and at this webpage: http://military.discovery.com/convergence/topten/bombers/slideshow/slideshow.html. It's a fascinating and highly debatable list.

10. B-17

9. Handley-Page 0/100

8. Junkers JU-88

7. Tupelov Tu-95 'Bear'

6. Boeing B-47 Stratojet (what a beautiful plane that was!)

5. Avro Lancaster

4. De Havilland Mosquito

3. Boeing B-29

2. Boeing B-2

1. Boeing B-52

Comments? Arguments? Where's the B-24?