Imperial War Museum Duxford

The Imperial War Museum originated during the First World War in 1917 as the National War Museum committee, formed by the British government to record the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire. The museum opened in 1920, by which point it had been renamed the Imperial War Museum. With the outbreak of the Second World War, the museum's terms of reference were enlarged to include that conflict as well. The museum's terms of reference was broadened again in 1953 to include all modern conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces were engaged. The effect of these expansions of remit was to cause the museum's collections to expand enormously, to the point that many parts of the…

The American Air Museum was designed by Norman Foster and Chris Wise at Arup. The museum's specification called for a landmark building that would provide a neutral backdrop for the aircraft collection and provide appropriate climatic controls while being cost efficient to operate. The building is shaped as a section of a torus, formed from a curved concrete roof 90 m wide, 18.5 m high and 100 m deep. The dimensions of the building were dictated by the need to accommodate the museum's B-52 Stratofortress bomber with its 61 m wingspan and a tail 16 m high. The roof was constructed as a double-layered concrete shell, built in 924 precast reinforced concrete sections. Inverted T-shaped…

, left foreground, B-52 cockpit, right foreground, and SPAD S.XIII, PT-17 and A-10 Thunderbolt II, suspended above.]] The American Air Museum was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 1 August 1997. The total cost of the project had been £13.5 million. and Consolidated B-24 Liberator. The SR-71, serial number 61-7962, is the only example of its type on display outside the United States, and set a flight altitude record of 85,069 feet (25,929m) in July 1976. Besides the Blackbird, nineteen other American aircraft are on display. Notable examples include a C-47 Skytrain which flew with the 316th Troop Carrier Group and participated in three major Second World War airborne operations; the June 1944…