Museum of Berkshire Aviation, Woodley, Berkshire

A lovely little museum, packed with all kinds of aeronautica, and with a very high proportion of rarities.

The Museum is on the southern edge of now disappeared Woodley Aerodrome, which was active from 1929 to the 1960s, when it was completely redeveloped. Woodley was the home of Philips & Powis, the manufacturers of Miles aircraft, with nearly 6,000 aircraft built here, mainly, of course, during WW2.

The Museum staff are welcoming and the admission fees remarkably low. The upstairs gallery at the back merits an hour or so in itself. Well worth a visit - mine was on 15 September.

Aircraft Reg'n Thumbs Notes
Elliotts of Newbury (EoN) Olympia 465 Phase 2 (Type B) 465 Wooden single-seat standard class glider. The 460 series was first flown in 1960 and two 465s were built, with reclined seat and reduced wingspan, for the 1965 World Gliding Championships: the last aircraft designed and built by EoN before Slingsby took them over.
Elliotts of Newbury (EoN) Primary Trainer G-ALMN BGA589 Copy of the DFS SG38 Schulgleiter: 80 produced from 1948 for clubs and for the Combined Cadet Force as the Eton TX1.
Fairey Gannet T5 XG883 First flight in 1957 from Northolt, retired 1970.
Fairey Jet Gyrodyne XJ389 Modified from the Gyrodyne G-AJJP to test the tip jet system to be used on the Rotodyne. One engine in the fuselage drove the two pusher propellors and a compressor for the jets. First flight 1954, ceased when Rotodyne testing started in 1957.
Goodwin JG3 midget racer None Racer designed for the 1964 Rollason contest won by the Luton Beta. Never completed.
Handley Page HPR7 Dart Herald 100 G-APWA First production Dart Herald, first flew in 1959, used as a company demonstrator and for leasing to various operators. Made sales tours to Africa and South America, and a royal tour to South America in 1962, with Prince Philip as captain for 99 hours.
Miles M14A Hawk Trainer 3 (Magister) replica 'L6906' BAPC.044 Constructed over 12 years, incorporating parts from T9841, which became G-AKKY, withdrawn from use in 1964.
Miles M25 Martinet TT1 TF-SHC MS902 The first British aircraft designed as a target tug. 1,724 were built. MS902 was delivered to RAF Iceland in 1943. In 1949 it was sold to a flying club, crashed in a remote area in 1951, and recovered in 1977. The museum restored the wreckage - the sole surviving Martinet.
Miles M52 research model   Supersonic jet research project first mooted in 1942 and cancelled in 1946. Data was thnn shared with Bell who went on to develop the X-1.
Miles M60 Mk1A Marathon fuselage section G-AMGW AKA Handley Page (Reading) HPR.1 Marathon 1. Went to Nigeria for a while as VR-NAN and returned to Derby Airways in 1955, withdrawn in 1960.
Miles M100 Student G-MIOO Sole example: starting as Mk1 G-APLK in 1957, it was developed as a Mk2 for counter-insurgency operations as XS941. When that was rejected, it was civilianised as G-MIOO, damaged in a crash in 1985 and is being restored.
Westland Scout AH1 XP849 British Army/ETPS. Damaged in 1997, became G-CBUH, came to the museum in 2010, but was registered as ZK-HQU in 2011.

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