Exhibition 'Air & Space Hall' in Museum of Science and Industry
By road or by air, this city’s inventors and engineers made a big impact on the way we travel today. See the cars, bikes and aeroplanes that got industrial Manchester moving.
See a replica of the Roe Triplane 1, the first all-British aeroplane to make it into the skies on 23 July 1909.
It was the work of Manchester-born inventor Alliot Verdon Roe, who founded A V Roe and Company (known as Avro) in 1910. A V Roe became a leader in British aircraft design, building aeroplanes that saw action in both World Wars.
Get up close to the Avro Avian IIIA (G-EBZM), and the WR960 MR2/AEW2 Avro Shackleton, which was designed to locate and attack submarines and for search and rescue. It could fly for up to 24 hours.
Did you know that the Rolls-Royce motor company started life in Manchester, after a chance meeting between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce at the city’s Midland Hotel? The 1905 Rolls-Royce model on display was used by Henry Royce himself.
You can also see a 1912 Ford Model T, built in Trafford Park, Manchester—the home of Henry Ford’s first factory in Britain, and Europe’s first moving production line.
