Wings Museum

Wings Museum
Wings Museum entrance on Brantridge Lane
Location Balcombe, West Sussex
Type Aviation museum
Website http://www.wingsmuseum.co.uk/

The Wings Museum is an aviation museum located in Sussex, United Kingdom. It is housed in a 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) hangar-like former farm building in Brantridge Lane, between Handcross and Balcombe. The museum displays mainly World War II-related flying memorabilia and equipment which have been donated,[1][2] or which have been recovered and restored by volunteers.[3]

History

The museum was originally located at Redhill Aerodrome.[4] By 2011 it had relocated to Brantridge Lane.[5]

In 2013, the museum hosted a fundraiser for the upkeep of the Bomber Command Memorial in nearby Green Park.[6][7]

In 2015, volunteers restored a Bristol Beaufighter Mk1f which had crashed 75 years earlier.[8]

Aircraft on display

Visitors to the museum can walk inside a complete fuselage from a Douglas C-47 Dakota which was used on D-Day[9] and later during the filming of the television series Band of Brothers. [10]

There are some very rare aircraft from World War II and some of them are the only ones of their type in the UK.

Piston engine aircraft

  • Bell P-63 King cobra - 43-11137 (under restoration).[11] The museum also has five more in storage.
  • Douglas A-20 Boston (displayed as found)
  • Nakajima B5N2 Kate (very large fuselage and wing section)
  • Douglas C-47 Dakota (Fuselage from Band of Brothers)
  • Hawker Hurricane (Wreck)[12]

Aircraft cockpits

  • Douglas A-26 Invader 43-22649
  • Bristol Beaufighter 1f[13]
  • Curtis Helldiver SB2C-5 (in storage)
  • Jet Provost XM486 (under restoration)
  • English Electric Canberra (In storage)
  • De Havilland Chipmunk WD377

Simulators

  • Link trainer

Piston engines

  • Rolls Royce Merlin x5 (One under restoration to run)
  • Junkers Jumo 211
  • Daimler Benz 610

See also

References

  1. ↑ "War hero’s memorabilia donated to Wings Museum in Balcombe". 26 April 2014
  2. ↑ Chris Ransted (19 September 2013). Disarming Hitlerês V Weapons: Bomb Disposal, the V1 and V2 rockets. Pen and Sword. pp. 62–. ISBN 978-1-4738-2967-1.
  3. ↑ "More Details Emerge About Wartime Military Aircraft Crash". The Guilford Dragon.
  4. ↑ "Wartime bomb discovered at Woodhatch pub to be displayed in museum". Surrey Mirror April 17, 2016
  5. ↑ Alexis Catsambis; Ben Ford; Donny L. Hamilton (8 September 2011). The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology. OUP USA. pp. 1002–. ISBN 978-0-19-537517-6.
  6. ↑ "VIDEO: Bomber Command veterans raise hundreds for Green Park memorial". Mid Sussex Times, 10 April 2013.
  7. ↑ "Wings reunion for Bomber Boys". ITV News, 9 April 2013
  8. ↑ "Nostalgia: Remembering Second World War fighter pilots killed in crash". Surrey Mirror, November 01, 2015.
  9. ↑ John Grehan; Martin Mace (2012). Battleground Sussex. Casemate Publishers. pp. 198–. ISBN 978-1-84884-661-6.
  10. ↑ "Tyre from a wartime bomber surfaces after 74 watery years". Mid Sussex Times, 8 March 2014
  11. ↑ "The Wings Museum’s Bell P-63C Kingcobra Restoration".Warbirds News, November 1, 2013
  12. ↑ Gordon Riley (19 October 2015). Hawker Hurricane Survivors. Grub Street Publishing. pp. 97–. ISBN 978-1-910690-79-6.
  13. ↑ "BRISTOL BEAUFIGHTER NEWS". AirSoc, 31 Aug 2015

Coordinates: 51°03′37″N 0°10′06″W / 51.0603°N 0.1684°W / 51.0603; -0.1684

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