Museums are ranked by how many Cold War airframes their inventories list, cockpits and replicas included. Each museum page has the full checklist.
Where to go
museums with Cold War aircraft
| Museum | Cold War airframes | Adult entry | Airframes | Examples | Headline exhibit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Helicopter MuseumWeston-super-Mare, Somerset | 81 | £15 | 108 | Aerospatiale AS332L Super Puma G-TIGE Sud Aviation SA321F Super Frelon F-OCMF Aerospatiale SA365N Dauphin 2 F-WQAP |
G-LYNX, the modified Westland Lynx that took the absolute helicopter world speed record (249.09 mph) in 1986 and holds it still; parked… |
| Fleet Air Arm MuseumYeovil, Somerset | 39 | £21 | 97 | Westland Wessex HAS.3 XP142 Westland Wessex HU.5 XT765 Westland Wessex HU.5 XT769 |
Concorde 002 (G-BSST), the first British-assembled Concorde, which made her maiden flight from Filton in 1969 and now headlines a hall of… |
| South Wales Aviation MuseumBarry, Vale of Glamorgan | 35 | £10 | 73 | BAe Hawk T.1A XX263 British Aerospace 146 CC.2 ZE700 Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B XX889 |
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 | 35 | £7.50 | 109 | BAE Systems Hawk T.1 XX238 FMA IA-58A Pucara cockpit section A-533 FMA IA-58A Pucara A-515 |
Doncaster's South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum sprawls across the old RAF Doncaster site: dozens of airframes and helicopters, strong… |
| IWM DuxfordCambridge, Cambridgeshire | 32 | £29 | 146 | Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck Mk.4B 18393 BAC TSR.2 XR222 BAC Concorde 101 G-AXDN |
Concorde 101 (G-AXDN), the pre-production development aircraft and the fastest Concorde of them all at Mach 2.23 — plus an SR-71A… |
| Newark Air MuseumNewark, Nottinghamshire | 30 | £12.50 | 95 | Armstrong Whitworth Argosy C.1 cockpit section XN819 Bensen B-8 gyrocopter G-ASNY Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 XN964 |
Vulcan XM594, with cockpit tours occasionally given by former Vulcan aircrew, which reviewers describe with the reverence normally… |
| Ulster Aviation Society (Maze Long Kesh)Lisburn, County Antrim | 29 | By appointment | 63 | BAE Harrier GR.9 ZD465 BAE Hawk T.1A XX260 Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B XV361 |
The Shorts family — SC.1 vertical take-off research aircraft included — plus a Buccaneer, Phantom, Wildcat, and a newly arrived AV-8… |
| Boscombe Down Aviation CollectionSalisbury, Wiltshire | 26 | £13.50 | 49 | GAF Jindivik 103A (painted as A92-466) A92-664 Northrop Shelduck D.1 (painted as XT005) XR898 Short MATS-B target drone (painted as ZA220) ZA242 |
The Lancaster cockpit reproduction tour, and a test-and-evaluation pedigree collection you can physically inhabit rather than admire… |
| Royal Air Force Museum MidlandsShifnal, Shropshire | 26 | Free | 78 | Hawker Siddeley Andover E.3A XS639 Hawker Siddeley Dominie T.1 XS709 Hawker Siddeley Nimrod R.1 XV249 |
TSR-2 XR220, one of two survivors of the most gifted aircraft Britain ever cancelled, sharing floor space with the stainless-steel… |
| Midland Air MuseumCoventry, Warwickshire | 23 | £11 | 66 | Armstrong Whitworth Argosy AW.650 (series 101) G-APRL Beagle B.206 G-ASWJ CMC Leopard G-BRNM |
Vulcan XL360 with cockpit access and volunteer-led tours (ask for the instrumentation talk), plus the Whittle jet heritage collection a… |
| National Museum Of FlightNorth Berwick, East Lothian | 19 | £15 | 47 | Air & Space 18A autogyro G-BVWK Weir W-2 autogyro Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde G-BOAA |
Concorde G-BOAA, which flew British Airways' first commercial supersonic service in 1976 and arrived here by barge and giant road-crawl… |
| Army Flying MuseumStockbridge, Hampshire | 18 | £18 | 43 | Westland Scout AH.1 XP847 Westland Scout AH.1 XP910 Westland Scout AH.1 XV127 |
Middle Wallop's Army Flying Museum covers everything the Army has flown from observation balloons to Apaches, with superb dioramas and a… |
| Bournemouth Aviation MuseumChristchurch, Dorset | 16 | £10 | 29 | Air Command 582 gyrocopter 62 APK BAC One-Eleven 479FU forward fuselage ZE432 British Aerospace 125 CC.3 ZD620 |
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… |
| Yorkshire Air MuseumYork, North Yorkshire | 16 | £17 | 54 | Air Command Sports Elite gyroplane BAE Systems HERTI UAV Blackburn Buccaneer S.2 XN974 |
Halifax 'Friday the 13th' — the world's only complete Halifax reconstruction, honouring the type that flew from this very field —… |
| City of Norwich Aviation MuseumNorwich, Norfolk | 15 | £9 | 33 | Avro RJ85 EI-RJN Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 XV255 Handley Page Herald 211 G-ASKK |
City of Norwich Aviation Museum at Horsham St Faith: Norfolk's largest, ~30 airframes including a Vulcan and Nimrod with bookable… |
| MorayviaForres, Moray | 15 | £8 | 35 | English Electric Lightning F.1A cockpit section XM169 Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 forward fuselage XV240 Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 XV244 |
Nimrod XV244 (complete, and the crew who operated her sometimes give the tours) alongside a Sea King in RAF SAR yellow — the machine that… |
| East Midlands AeroparkDerby, Leicestershire | 14 | £5 | 35 | Aérospatiale Gazelle XX457 Armstrong Whitworth Argosy G-BEOZ BAC Lightning F.53 ZF588 |
East Midlands Aeropark: a Vulcan, Nimrod R1 and Buccaneer parked on grassy mounds overlooking EMA's runway — half museum, half premier… |
| North East Land, Sea and Air MuseumsSunderland, Tyne and Wear | 14 | £7.50 | 46 | English Electric Lightning F.53 ZF594 de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 nose section XN696 Westland Sea King HAR.3 XZ590 |
NELSAM in Sunderland mixes Vulcan XL319 (flew in when the airport still existed), a Pucará from the Falklands, trams, buses and a… |
| Farnborough Air Sciences Trust MuseumFarnborough, Hampshire | 12 | Free | 16 | English Electric Lightning T.5 XS420 GAF Jindivik ZJ496 Northrop Chukar D.2 ZG631 |
FAST at Farnborough guards the birthplace of British aviation science — Cody, the RAE, wind tunnels — with sit-in Harrier, Puma and Lynx… |
| Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation MuseumBungay, Suffolk | 12 | £10 | 65 | Lovegrove Discord autogyro BAPC.306 Benson B-7 gyroglider Lovegrove Sheffy autogyro G-CDFW |
Depends who you ask — the joy is the oddities. Come for the Bloodhound missiles and decoy rarities; stay for volunteer flight-simulator… |
| Royal Air Force Museum LondonLondon, Greater London | 11 | Free | 88 | Westland Sea King HAR.3 XZ585 English Electric Lightning F.6 XS925 McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2 XV424 |
Avro Lancaster R5868 'S-Sugar' — 137 operations, the RAF's highest-scoring surviving heavy — under the same roof as a Vulcan, a… |
| Brooklands MuseumWeybridge, Surrey | 10 | £24–£27 | 32 | Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde G-BBDG Vickers VC10 (ex-Sultan of Oman, marked A4O-AB) G-ASIX Vickers VC10 fuselage G-ARVM |
Concorde G-BBDG, the British production-test aircraft, bookended by a Wellington bomber dredged out of Loch Ness in 1985 and the only… |
| RAF Manston History MuseumRamsgate, Kent | 10 | £7 | 22 | English Electric Lightning F.6 XR770 English Electric P.1B XA847 SEPECAT Jaguar GR.3A XZ106 |
RAF Manston's history museum spans 1916 RNAS days to Cold War Meteors, with strong 1940s room-sets — and it sits next door to the… |
| Gatwick Aviation MuseumGatwick, Surrey | 8 | £12.50 | 16 | Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 XN923 English Electric Lightning F.53 ZF579 English Electric Lightning F.53 cockpit section ZF589 |
Avro Shackleton WR982 (the £5 guided tour is unanimously endorsed) and a live-engined English Electric Lightning. There's also… |
| Solway Aviation MuseumCrosby on Eden, Cumbria | 8 | £8 | 21 | English Electric Lightning F.53 ZF583 Fairey Gannet ECM.6 XA459 McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2 XV406 |
Vulcan XJ823 with pre-bookable crew-compartment visits; a Phantom, Lightning and Canberra (whose three-crew cockpit reviewers describe as… |
| Bentwaters Cold War MuseumWoodbridge, Suffolk | 5 | £7.50 | 9 | BAe Harrier GR.3 ZD667 English Electric Lightning F.53 ZF581 Fairchild A-10A Thunderbolt II 80-0219 |
Bentwaters Cold War Museum occupies the actual USAF hardened command post — war room, battle cabin and decontamination showers intact —… |
| Cornwall at War Museum, DavidstowCamelford, Cornwall | 5 | £7 | 8 | Fairey Gannet ECM.6 XG831 Westland Sea King HAS.6 rear crew procedures trainer ZG461 Northrop Chukar D.1 XW999 |
Cornwall’s big WW2 / military museum on the old RAF Davidstow Moor Coastal Command field — aircraft, military vehicles, humour intact,… |
| De Havilland Aircraft MuseumSt Albans, Hertfordshire | 5 | £12 | 35 | British Aerospace 146-100 fuselage G-JEAO de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen FAW.2 XJ565 de Havilland DH.125 Series 1 G-ARYC |
Mosquito prototype W4050, the original 1940 aircraft, in the place it was designed and first assembled. No other British museum has… |
| Solent SkySouthampton, Hampshire | 5 | £14 | 23 | Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 cockpit section XV760 de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 XJ571 Britten-Norman BN-1F G-ALZE |
Supermarine S.6A N248, the 1929 Schneider Trophy racer from the bloodline that begat the Spitfire — parked beneath its descendant for… |
| Tangmere Military Aviation MuseumChichester, West Sussex | 5 | £15 | 23 | de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 XJ580 English Electric Lightning F.53 ZF578 Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 XV744 |
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;… |
| British Phantom Group & Bristol Britannia XM496 (Kemble)Cirencester, Gloucestershire | 4 | Seasonal | 5 | McDonnell Douglas Phantom FG.1 XT597 McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2 XT905 McDonnell Douglas Phantom F-4J(UK) ZE360 |
A working restoration compound at Cotswold Airport (Kemble): the only place on Earth with F-4J, K and M Phantoms together, plus Britannia… |
| Montrose Air Station MuseumMontrose, Angus | 4 | £10 | 14 | Panavia Tornado GR.4 ZD744 SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1 XX975 McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2 cockpit section XT903 |
The 1913 fabric itself, plus the resident ghost stories (Montrose is Britain's most famously haunted airfield, a claim the volunteers… |
| Runway Visitor Park, Manchester AirportAltrincham, Greater Manchester | 4 | £6–£15 | 5 | Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde G-BOAC Hawker Siddeley Trident 3B G-AWZK Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 XV231 |
Concorde G-BOAC, British Airways' flagship (the 'OAC' registration was no accident), enthroned in her own glass hangar with tours from… |
| Aerospace BristolBristol, Gloucestershire | 3 | £20 | 14 | Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde 216 G-BOAF Bristol 173 Srs 1 XF785 British Aerospace 146-RJX fuselage section |
Concorde G-BOAF, the last Concorde ever built and the last ever to fly (26 November 2003, into Filton, forever). You can board her.… |
| Avro Heritage MuseumStockport, Greater Manchester | 3 | £9 | 14 | Hawker Siddeley 748 Srs 2A cockpit section G-ORAL Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 forward fuselage XV235 Vickers VC10 C1K cockpit section (on loan) XV106 |
Vulcan XM603 — the only all-white Vulcan on display anywhere, in original anti-flash nuclear livery — plus walk-in Lancaster and Nimrod… |
| Hooton Park HangarsEllesmere Port, Cheshire | 3 | £9 | 45 | Fairey Gannet T.2 forward section (twin cockpit) BAPC.309 Parker CA.4 Parasol (Luton Minor) G-AFIU Bensen B-7M G-APUD |
Hooton Park's 1917 Belfast-truss hangars — among the finest WWI aviation buildings surviving — hold aircraft, buses and a printing museum… |
| RAF Air Defence Radar MuseumNorwich, Norfolk | 3 | £14 | 3 | SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1A cockpit section XX979 Panavia Tornado F.3 cockpit section ZE936 English Electric Lightning F.2A nose section XN795 |
The original 1942 Ground Controlled Interception room and its Cold War successor: Britain's actual air-defence nervous system, in situ,… |
| RAF Coltishall Heritage CentreNorwich, Norfolk | 3 | Free | 5 | SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1 XZ384 SEPECAT Jaguar S (composite, under restoration) XW563 English Electric Lightning T.5 cockpit section XS421 |
RAF Coltishall's guardroom museum, curated by veterans of the base — the Jaguar force's spiritual home, free to enter on open days, with… |
| Stoneykirk Aviation MuseumStranraer, Dumfries and Galloway | 3 | £6 | 9 | de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 nose section XP925 Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 cockpit section XK533 Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B nose section XN983 |
Stoneykirk: one enthusiast's cockpit collection on a Galloway croft, Vulcan included, with tea, cakes and a perfect 5.0 rating — the… |
| The Gliding Heritage CentreAlton, Hampshire | 3 | Donation | 72 | Schleicher Ka 3 BGA.2689 Schleicher Ka 8B G-CHRJ Schleicher Ka 8B G-DCGH |
Lasham's Gliding Heritage Centre: Europe's finest vintage-glider collection, most of them airworthy and actually flown, with free… |
| Thorpe Camp Visitor CentreLincoln, Lincolnshire | 3 | £7 | 5 | English Electric Lightning F.1A XM192 Westland Wessex HAS.1 XS887 Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B nose section XX895 |
Thorpe Camp preserves RAF Woodhall Spa's communal site — home of 617 Squadron post-Dams — as a period village of huts, with volunteers in… |
| Airworld Aviation MuseumCaernarfon, Gwynedd | 2 | £7 | 10 | Hawker Siddeley Harrier T.4 XW269 BAe Hawk T.1 XX309 |
Airworld at Caernarfon Airport (RAF Llandwrog, birthplace of the RAF Mountain Rescue Service): Hunter, Vampire and the world's only… |
| Robertsbridge Aviation SocietyRobertsbridge, East Sussex | 2 | Free | 6 | de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.1 nose XJ488 English Electric Lightning F.3 nose XP701 |
Robertsbridge Aviation Society — a village-hall-sized museum of recovered WWII relics and six jet cockpit sections, curated with… |
| Speke Aerodrome Heritage GroupLiverpool, Merseyside | 2 | Free | 7 | BAe Jetstream 41 G-JMAC Hawker Siddeley HS.748-1 G-BEJD |
Speke Airport Museum — Speke Aerodrome Heritage Group keeps airliners, including a Dan-Air 748 under restoration, on Liverpool's gorgeous… |
| Wings Aviation MuseumHaywards Heath, West Sussex | 2 | £13 | 25 | Hawker Siddeley Kestrel FGA.1 fuselage XS694 Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 nose section XV786 |
The Wings Museum near Balcombe displays Eastern Front and D-Day aircraft archaeology in crash-site dioramas — raw, unpolished and… |
| Hucknall Flight Test MuseumNottingham, Nottinghamshire | 1 | By appointment | 3 | Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 (mod) (stored) XV798 | Hucknall Flight Test Museum, on the aerodrome where Rolls-Royce flew testbeds from 1934 (and hoisted the Flying Bedstead into history),… |
| Jet Age MuseumGloucester, Gloucestershire | 1 | Donation | 15 | Hawker Siddeley Trident 3B forward section G-AWZU | Gloucestershire's jet-age shrine (free!) beside Staverton airport: Gloster heritage from the E.28/39 replica to Javelins, with… |
| RAF Sculthorpe Heritage CentreFakenham, Norfolk | 1 | £2.50 | 2 | Northrop F-5E Tiger II full-size replica | Sculthorpe: North Norfolk's atomic secret — 10,000 Americans and nuclear-alert B-45s in the 1950s — remembered in a heritage centre with… |
| Sywell Aviation MuseumNorthampton, Northamptonshire | 1 | Free | 5 | Handley Page Jetstream 200 G-RAVL | Sywell Aviation Museum: a POW-hut-sized, free museum on Britain's loveliest Art Deco aerodrome, where resident Spitfires and a Mustang… |
| Wellesbourne Wartime MuseumWarwick, Warwickshire | 1 | £1.50 | 3 | de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 nose section XJ575 | Wellesbourne's underground WWII battle HQ bunker plus a compact museum — and, crucially, shared turf with Vulcan XM655, the most complete… |
| Wight Aviation MuseumSandown, Isle of Wight | 1 | Free | 2 | Scottish Aviation Bulldog 120 fuselage G-CCOA | Free volunteer-run museum on Sandown airfield covering the Island's surprising aviation industry — including a full-size Black Arrow… |
The era
Cold War, 1957–1989
Helicopters swell the numbers. The Helicopter Museum at Weston-super-Mare has 55 Cold War airframes, including record-holding Lynx G-LYNX. The Fleet Air Arm Museum has 33, and Duxford and the South Wales Aviation Museum 31 each. For American hardware, Bentwaters keeps A-10A 80-0219 on the base the USAF left in 1993.
- Cosford’s National Cold War Exhibition puts the Vulcan, Victor and Valiant under one roof, and entry is free.
- The Air Defence Radar Museum at Neatishead keeps its Cold War operations rooms as they were left.
- Bentwaters Cold War Museum opens on limited days.
What to see
Cold War types on display
1948American rotary visitors61948Soviet rotary wing81949Fairey Gannet111951de Havilland Sea Vixen161952Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck11952Boeing B-52 Stratofortress11953The light rotary flock471954Lockheed Hercules31954English Electric Lightning301954Lockheed Starfighter & Voodoo31955Sud-Ouest Djinn & MBB Bo 10521955Handley Page Herald & Jetstream151955Lockheed U-211955Fokker F27 Friendship31956Bell UH-1 Huey51956Supermarine Scimitar31956Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-2131956Dassault Mirage III & IV21957GAF Jindivik & the target drones331957Boeing 707, 737 & 74761957Schleicher Ka 861958Westland Wessex291958Blackburn Buccaneer251958McDonnell Douglas Phantom221959Westland Scout & Wasp221959Armstrong Whitworth Argosy41959Vickers Vanguard & Merchantman21959Northrop F-511960Harrier family301960Hawker Siddeley Andover & 74841960PZL TS-11 Iskra21961Westland Belvedere51961Beagle B.206 & Pup41961General Dynamics F-11121961Boeing Chinook31961SUMPAC11962Hawker Siddeley Trident91962Vickers VC10111962Hawker Siddeley 125 / Dominie81963BAC Strikemaster & Bulldog81963BAC One-Eleven51964BAC TSR.221964Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird11964Short Belfast11965Aérospatiale Puma & Super Frelon71965Britten-Norman Islander & Trislander51965AH-64 Apache & AH-1 Cobra21967Aérospatiale Gazelle & Alouette131967Hawker Siddeley Nimrod131967MiG-23 & MiG-2721967Saab Viggen & Draken21968SEPECAT Jaguar301969Cierva Grasshopper41969Westland Sea King191969Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde71969FMA IA 58 Pucará61970McDonnell Douglas DC-1011971Agusta A109 & the civil twin helicopters71971Westland Lynx231972Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II21972McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle11973Colomban Cri-Cri & the homebuilt shelf261974BAe Hawk131974Panavia Tornado201974Short 33021976Westland 30 & the might-have-beens71981British Aerospace 14651986Short Tucano51986British Aerospace EAP1
Questions
Frequently asked
Where can I see Concorde in the UK?
Duxford (G-AXDN), Brooklands (G-BBDG), Aerospace Bristol (G-BOAF), the Fleet Air Arm Museum (G-BSST), Manchester Airport (G-BOAC) and East Fortune (G-BOAA).
Where can I see a TSR-2?
XR220 is at the RAF Museum Midlands, Cosford, and the less complete XR222 is at IWM Duxford.
Which museum has the most Cold War aircraft?
The Helicopter Museum at Weston-super-Mare, with 55, mostly helicopters and autogyros.