Avro Heritage Museum, Woodford
Woodford produced the BAe 146, and the museum’s volunteers include former workers there.
The types
British Aerospace aircraft you can see
| Type | First flew | Built | UK museums |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handley Page Herald & Jetstream | 1955 | ~90 | 12 |
| Harrier familyP.1127, Kestrel, GR.3, Sea Harrier, GR.9 | 1960 | ~825 | 21 |
| Hawker Siddeley 125 / Dominie | 1962 | ~1,700 | 7 |
| BAe HawkT.1 | 1974 | ~1,000 | 11 |
| British Aerospace 146+ Avro RJX | 1981 | 387 | 5 |
| British Aerospace EAP | 1986 | 1 | 1 |
| BAe Sea Harrier FA.2 | 1988 | ~50 | 10 |
| Avro RJX | 2001 | 3 | 1 |
The firm
British Aerospace in brief
It was privatised in 1981 and 1985, with the government keeping a golden share. BAe inherited the 125, Harrier, 748 and Concorde. It developed the Sea Harrier, the Hawk trainer, the BAe 146 and the Jetstream turboprops. The 146 was later sold as the Avro RJ. The EAP demonstrator led to the Eurofighter Typhoon, which BAe joined in 1986.
BAe bought Royal Ordnance in 1987 and the Rover Group in 1988, and held 20% of Airbus from 1979. Main aircraft sites included Warton, Woodford, Brough, Filton, Kingston and Hatfield. BAe merged with Marconi Electronic Systems on 30 November 1999 to form BAE Systems.
Where to go
Museums holding British Aerospace aircraft
| Museum | British Aerospace types | Adult entry | Airframes | Headline exhibit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Air Force Museum MidlandsShifnal, Shropshire | 5 | Free | 78 | TSR-2 XR220, one of two survivors of the most gifted aircraft Britain ever cancelled, sharing floor space with the stainless-steel… |
| South Wales Aviation MuseumBarry, Vale of Glamorgan | 4 | £10 | 73 | The resident Harrier and a growing VC10/Tornado-era collection, most with steps and open canopies. Kids exit wearing thousand-yard grins. |
| South Yorkshire Aircraft MuseumDoncaster, South Yorkshire | 4 | £7.50 | 109 | Doncaster's South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum sprawls across the old RAF Doncaster site: dozens of airframes and helicopters, strong… |
| Boscombe Down Aviation CollectionSalisbury, Wiltshire | 3 | £13.50 | 49 | The Lancaster cockpit reproduction tour, and a test-and-evaluation pedigree collection you can physically inhabit rather than admire… |
| City of Norwich Aviation MuseumNorwich, Norfolk | 3 | £9 | 33 | City of Norwich Aviation Museum at Horsham St Faith: Norfolk's largest, ~30 airframes including a Vulcan and Nimrod with bookable… |
| IWM DuxfordCambridge, Cambridgeshire | 3 | £29 | 146 | Concorde 101 (G-AXDN), the pre-production development aircraft and the fastest Concorde of them all at Mach 2.23 — plus an SR-71A… |
| Midland Air MuseumCoventry, Warwickshire | 3 | £11 | 66 | Vulcan XL360 with cockpit access and volunteer-led tours (ask for the instrumentation talk), plus the Whittle jet heritage collection a… |
| MorayviaForres, Moray | 3 | £8 | 35 | Nimrod XV244 (complete, and the crew who operated her sometimes give the tours) alongside a Sea King in RAF SAR yellow — the machine that… |
| National Museum Of FlightNorth Berwick, East Lothian | 3 | £15 | 47 | Concorde G-BOAA, which flew British Airways' first commercial supersonic service in 1976 and arrived here by barge and giant road-crawl… |
| Newark Air MuseumNewark, Nottinghamshire | 3 | £12.50 | 95 | Vulcan XM594, with cockpit tours occasionally given by former Vulcan aircrew, which reviewers describe with the reverence normally… |
| North East Land, Sea and Air MuseumsSunderland, Tyne and Wear | 3 | £7.50 | 46 | NELSAM in Sunderland mixes Vulcan XL319 (flew in when the airport still existed), a Pucará from the Falklands, trams, buses and a… |
| Aerospace BristolBristol, Gloucestershire | 2 | £20 | 14 | Concorde G-BOAF, the last Concorde ever built and the last ever to fly (26 November 2003, into Filton, forever). You can board her.… |
| Airworld Aviation MuseumCaernarfon, Gwynedd | 2 | £7 | 10 | Airworld at Caernarfon Airport (RAF Llandwrog, birthplace of the RAF Mountain Rescue Service): Hunter, Vampire and the world's only… |
| Bournemouth Aviation MuseumChristchurch, Dorset | 2 | £10 | 29 | The sit-anywhere policy itself — one entry fee, no per-cockpit charges, a full BAC 1-11 flight-deck sim in a shed, and thousands… |
| Brooklands MuseumWeybridge, Surrey | 2 | £24–£27 | 32 | Concorde G-BBDG, the British production-test aircraft, bookended by a Wellington bomber dredged out of Loch Ness in 1985 and the only… |
| De Havilland Aircraft MuseumSt Albans, Hertfordshire | 2 | £12 | 35 | Mosquito prototype W4050, the original 1940 aircraft, in the place it was designed and first assembled. No other British museum has… |
| Fleet Air Arm MuseumYeovil, Somerset | 2 | £21 | 97 | Concorde 002 (G-BSST), the first British-assembled Concorde, which made her maiden flight from Filton in 1969 and now headlines a hall of… |
| Solway Aviation MuseumCrosby on Eden, Cumbria | 2 | £8 | 21 | Vulcan XJ823 with pre-bookable crew-compartment visits; a Phantom, Lightning and Canberra (whose three-crew cockpit reviewers describe as… |
| Tangmere Military Aviation MuseumChichester, West Sussex | 2 | £15 | 23 | Hawker Hunter WB188 in one-off scarlet, in which Neville Duke took the world air speed record to 727.63 mph off this coast in 1953;… |
| Ulster Aviation Society (Maze Long Kesh)Lisburn, County Antrim | 2 | By appointment | 63 | The Shorts family — SC.1 vertical take-off research aircraft included — plus a Buccaneer, Phantom, Wildcat, and a newly arrived AV-8… |
| Yorkshire Air MuseumYork, North Yorkshire | 2 | £17 | 54 | Halifax 'Friday the 13th' — the world's only complete Halifax reconstruction, honouring the type that flew from this very field —… |
| Bentwaters Cold War MuseumWoodbridge, Suffolk | 1 | £7.50 | 9 | Bentwaters Cold War Museum occupies the actual USAF hardened command post — war room, battle cabin and decontamination showers intact —… |
| East Midlands AeroparkDerby, Leicestershire | 1 | £5 | 35 | East Midlands Aeropark: a Vulcan, Nimrod R1 and Buccaneer parked on grassy mounds overlooking EMA's runway — half museum, half premier… |
| Farnborough Air Sciences Trust MuseumFarnborough, Hampshire | 1 | Free | 16 | FAST at Farnborough guards the birthplace of British aviation science — Cody, the RAE, wind tunnels — with sit-in Harrier, Puma and Lynx… |
| Gatwick Aviation MuseumGatwick, Surrey | 1 | £12.50 | 16 | Avro Shackleton WR982 (the £5 guided tour is unanimously endorsed) and a live-engined English Electric Lightning. There's also… |
| Hucknall Flight Test MuseumNottingham, Nottinghamshire | 1 | By appointment | 3 | Hucknall Flight Test Museum, on the aerodrome where Rolls-Royce flew testbeds from 1934 (and hoisted the Flying Bedstead into history),… |
| Royal Air Force Museum LondonLondon, Greater London | 1 | Free | 88 | Avro Lancaster R5868 'S-Sugar' — 137 operations, the RAF's highest-scoring surviving heavy — under the same roof as a Vulcan, a… |
| Runway Visitor Park, Manchester AirportAltrincham, Greater Manchester | 1 | £6–£15 | 5 | Concorde G-BOAC, British Airways' flagship (the 'OAC' registration was no accident), enthroned in her own glass hangar with tours from… |
| Solent SkySouthampton, Hampshire | 1 | £14 | 23 | Supermarine S.6A N248, the 1929 Schneider Trophy racer from the bloodline that begat the Spitfire — parked beneath its descendant for… |
| Speke Aerodrome Heritage GroupLiverpool, Merseyside | 1 | Free | 7 | Speke Airport Museum — Speke Aerodrome Heritage Group keeps airliners, including a Dan-Air 748 under restoration, on Liverpool's gorgeous… |
| Sywell Aviation MuseumNorthampton, Northamptonshire | 1 | Free | 5 | Sywell Aviation Museum: a POW-hut-sized, free museum on Britain's loveliest Art Deco aerodrome, where resident Spitfires and a Mustang… |
| Wings Aviation MuseumHaywards Heath, West Sussex | 1 | £13 | 25 | The Wings Museum near Balcombe displays Eastern Front and D-Day aircraft archaeology in crash-site dioramas — raw, unpolished and… |
Questions
Frequently asked
When was British Aerospace formed?
On 29 April 1977, by nationalising and merging BAC, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation.
Is British Aerospace the same as BAE Systems?
BAE Systems was formed on 30 November 1999, when British Aerospace merged with Marconi Electronic Systems.
What was the EAP?
The Experimental Aircraft Programme demonstrator. It led to the Eurofighter Typhoon.