You get an immediate sense of place and history as you enter the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum site in Colindale, north London. At the gate stands a replica Hurricane fighter aircraft, one of the many “gate guardians” found on RAF bases, which usually have a connection to the place they guard. This Hurricane has been painted with the markings of one that flew from the airfield that was once here, RAF Hendon, in the Battle of Britain – foiling an attack on Buckingham Palace.

This year marks the RAF’s centenary and the museum has used the occasion to complete a multimillion-pound redevelopment, including three new galleries and a grassed “airfield” at the centre of the site.

Two of the exhibitions are found in Hangar 1, a natural first stop on your route around the museum. RAF Stories: The First 100 Years 1918-2018 introduces you to the air force and its history. Snappy text quickly provides the history and significance of the RAF, emphasising its ongoing role in British history.
An opening wall showing a range of personnel hats and helmets gives you the sense that this is a story about people. I was also pleased to see a prominent panel at the entrance explaining the accessible features built into the gallery.

Past the wall of helmets you meet four cutout life-size figures, including the chef Vishwaananda Kisten and corporal Laura O’Brian-Burn (and dog). This is an effective interpretive tool and continues through the exhibition, peopling the space with faces and names from the RAF’s history.

At times it became hard to distinguish these RAF characters from other visitors, especially a group of cadets. With the usual panorama of airplanes hanging impressively overhead, this sets the tone for an exhibition that clearly aims to challenge visitors’ preconceptions about a story on the RAF.

The exhibition introduces the RAF thematically, with large panels introducing subjects including “Support”, “Attack”, “RAF Spirit and Values”, “Recruitment and Training” and “Global Reach”.
I’d have liked more guidance on how to navigate the space, but concluded eventually that the spine focuses on people’s lives in the RAF and sits between sections broadly focused on attack or support. Diverse personal stories continue through the space, with almost every display case featuring a different character.

There is a fascinating range of objects on show, including letters, lucky mascots, books and embroidered purses alongside the more expected planes, automobiles, uniforms and awards. At times, I felt the objects were a little hidden, especially the smaller ones, which were largely in glass cases behind the relevant section panels. It is also surprising that some objects are already out for conservation treatment when the museum only reopened in June.

Touch, smell and sound

Opportunities for varied interaction are interwoven well among the static displays. The Attack section offers a space to have your say on the effects of bombing. Terminals offer touch, smell and sound routes into stories presented in adjacent cases, and there are model planes for children to sit in, as well as a range of digital games and a pilot simulator zone.

For those with a more chronological mind, one long wall offers a timeline of the RAF’s history set alongside national and international events. Below this, a parade of objects adds life to these dates, again with options for touch and interaction. Similarly, for those with a more technical interest, another layer of interpretation details the dates, specifications and uses of the   aircraft, missiles and vehicles on display.

Duly impressed with the balanced and compelling narrative of this exhibition, and with a new interest in the history of the RAF, I continued into the second adjacent display, RAF: First to the Future. This introduces how the air force is working with cutting-edge technology and is presented within a structure of white metal screens, which give the sense of being in a laboratory environment.

You are introduced first to the F35 Lightning II, the RAF’s most advanced stealth fighter, followed by a section on state-of-the-art intelligence used for precision attack. Finally, a series of beautiful model aeroplanes helps you to design your own by choosing its speed, reach and height. These displays felt lopsided, emphasising technological successes with little of the cultural context in the previous exhibition.

I found the central debating table – which asked the ethical questions necessary for critiquing these technologies properly – confusing to use, as did others around me; it seemed to work well only in a facilitated group debate.

Both the successes and shortcomings of these two new displays are continued in the third. Walking across the freshly grassed area, with the chance to stop at one of the cafes or use the picnic area and children’s playground, you arrive at Hangar 6. This houses the exhibition The RAF in an Age of Uncertainty: 1980-Today.

Sense of history

Seven activities of the modern RAF, displayed thematically, are presented through a series of objects and operations, while a timeline of broader political, cultural and technological events runs along one wall. “Maritime”, for example, is discussed through the cold war, “Defence” through Libya and “Attack” through Iraq.

Each section is peopled by a uniform, a personal story and a screen with recorded interviews or film footage. A connected window structure shows you which planes relate to this narrative. 

The military operations dealt with in this exhibition remain contested and sensitive, but the text here feels sanitised as it maintains a neutral tone on each conflict. Real faces are less evident than in the The First 100 Years display, but can be found in the associated digital terminals, which require some exploring from visitors. However, the person presented in the display does not always feature in the related film interviews and these sometimes feel disjointed as they have clearly been cut from longer conversations divided across the terminals.

There are some impressive aeroplanes here, with an opportunity to get close and look down on many of them through linked staircases or the balcony that runs around one wall. I liked the trays of paper dotted around and the warning sign, “This aircraft drips”, which give you a sense of these as complicated machines that all have their own quirks and idiosyncracies.

Communicating the RAF

The exhibition design is flexible, with the timeline feeling like a pinboard, which helps to give a sense that the RAF remains an active service.

The displays are slick and carefully produced, with the danger of making the ones in the older hangars look dated. But the graphic style chosen for The First 100 Years exhibition relates well to the existing First World War in the Air show in Hangar 2, and the cutout life-size figures continue into the large aircraft displays in Hangars 3 to 5, helping to attract visitors to these spaces.

The museum was popular and busy on the sunny Sunday I visited, with as many people engaged in the displays as in the playground or grass outside. The exhibitions work hard to present the RAF’s history as one of diverse people and exciting technologies, and largely they do so effectively.

I hope that further phases might add more discussion of the history of the site and the various buildings, and give a sense of why these compelling stories are as relevant to the local area as they are to national and international visitors.

Katy Barrett is the curator of art collections at the Science Museum, London

Project data

  • Cost £26m
  • Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund; BAE Systems; Libor; Garfield Weston Foundation; government of Kuwait
  • Architect NEX Architecture; Agence Ter
  • Construction SDC; Borras
  • Exhibition design Kossmann.dejong; MET Studio
  • Graphic design Kossmann.dejong; MET Studio
  • Exhibition build and design The Hub
  • Interpretation RAF Museum
  • Audiovisual and digital interactives Kin; Kingdom; The Hub; Heritage Interactives; Spiral; Open Culture; RAF Museum
  • Lighting DHA designs
  • Display cases ClickNetherfield
  • Play equipment The Hub