I went to the Aero/auto jumble at Brooklands on Sunday. It was an easy trip M4/M25 J10 both ways & the weather was OK until the last few miles.
The entry price was £9 but £7 for me & the majority of incomers where bus passes must have outnumbered young 'uns ten to one - I kid you not! The museum is a very active one & every time I go there I find new things to look at, better presentation and lots of volunteers around to help.
The sale was nowhere near as big as I thought it would be & half an hour of head down looking & walking got it done. I found very little in the way of aero stuff & there were perhaps five stands specialising in old plane stuff. It was, however, an interesting day out.
I met up with a friend & collected from him a dynamo I'd bought off e-bay a few months back & it is a good buy, a volt dynamo, suitable for stationary engine driving. I found a couple of Newton Pile Voltage Regulators, a very nice oval copper tank that was actually once a hot water bottle. The addition of a tap will give it a new lease of life! A twelve volt sports coil from 1930's in perfect order, a lovely little hanging lead lamp with fabric-covered cable that I swear has never been used. And a few other bits. I was tempted by a tall OK Supreme engine, but it was without magneto cover & would just be one other job I'd not get around to, so I left it.
I wandered around the museum & was in the right place to see three blokes push start the Napier Railton, a record breaker in its day with a "broad arrow" W 12 24 litre 500hp aero engine lurking under it lovely long bonnet. The body is plain aluminium & it had been polished that morning. It sat there in gleaming splendour as the engine burbled and clattered to itself.
Next, they started and ran up a A.V. Roe replica with a Citroen 2CV engine, then an ABC "Scorpion" powered Bleriot AV10, a replica of the aircraft in which he crossed the English Channel 100 years ago this week. Then a powered glider from the '30's with an engine I didn't recognise. Finally, a Sopwith Camel, the rotary engine making its characteristic rustling roar, the displaced air from the whirling cylinders being readily heard over the bark of the exhaust.
All in all, an excellent day out & although the jumble was more auto than aero, at least it didn't present me with any hard-to-resist temptations! .