Opened in November 2016, the exhibition Dangerous Skies broadens the Omaka experience into the more familiar territory of World War Two, even while breaking new ground. As well as the Battle of Britain, visitors are taken on a journey through the lesser-known stories of the war on the Eastern front, including that of the world’s top-scoring female fighter ace Lydia Litvyak and the most famous of all women regiments, the Soviet 588th Night Bombers or ‘Night Witches’ as the Germans called them.
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Like World War One’s Knights of the Sky, Dangerous Skies features mannequins made by Weta Workshop, and original, static and flyable aircraft in larger-than-life dioramas, capturing specific snapshots in history.Dangerous Skies underwent a refresh in 2019, with further alterations since. The main exhibition area now holds four additional aircraft, all originals and never seen before at Omaka. The first a Messerschmitt Bf108 once owned and flown by German ace Franz Stigler, the second a Lockheed Hudson, an American-built light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft which has been suspended in a dramatic crash scene in the depths of a Pacific island jungle. Two aircraft from the John Smith Collection have also joined the exhibition; the magnificent de Havilland Mosquito and the famous ‘Gloria Lyons’ P-40 Kittyhawk.