The Helicopter Museum Model

  Located near Weston-Super-Mare the award-winning Helicopter Museum holds over 100 rotary-wing aircraft from all over the world, representing a wide spectrum of technologies. Exhibits include Royal Flight Whirlwind and Wessex helicopters and the current world speed record holding Lynx.

An important development this year is the Heritage Hanger, a new, purpose-built exhibition hall that focuses on the local area. Exhibits include helicopters from Bristol and Westland, and information about the site’s history as a municipal airport. The airport was started by in the 1930s, and in May 1936 scheduled air services were started. By 1938 a passenger terminal, hangar and control tower had been added, and de Havilland Dragon, Dragon Rapide and Express aircraft were used for services to Plymouth, Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester.

The Museum has a team of model builders, who are also members of IPMS North Somerset. When the Heritage Hanger was mooted, team member Andy Trewin put forward the idea of a large diorama to illustrate the early days at Weston Airport. A suitable, large-size display case was available, and Andy came up with the idea to include the control tower, hanger and terminal building. This was agreed and he used a combination of plans, maps and photos to guide his modelling of the various structures in 1/72. Construction used a mixture of card and 3D printing. The rest of the team helped with scenery, aircraft, vehicles and people. 

The buildings were laid out and scenery was created using a lot of static grass, vegetation and chain-link fencing. Roadways were laid and appropriate signs were researched and modelled. Model aircraft from a mixture of die-casts and plastic kits were sourced, with a 1/48th Rapide built by Colin Miles and suspended inside the top of the display case in fly-past mode.

Around 70 figures populate the scene adding life and little human touches for visitors to look out for. 2D photos of workers loading cases of strawberries into an aircraft were scanned and converted to 3D and printed out. (Strawberries in those days were a premium  crop, and air freight could be justified.) Last but not least are models of the ever-present gulls. 

In getting the diorama built to a deadline a few anachronisms have crept in. However, the idea was to capture the spirit of the early years at Weston-Super-Mare. The resultant diorama now greets visitors as they enter the Heritage Hanger. It gives an impression of what the early years of the airport in the 1930s and 1940s would have looked like, in a way that seeing photographs and written material cannot rival. And the diorama has been very popular, judging by the social media posts that have been made.