Fleet Air Arm Museum

The Fleet Air Arm Museum is hosted adjacent to RNAS Yeovilton, an operational air base home to more than 100 aircraft and some 4,300 personnel. The museum tells the story, which begins in 1909, of the Royal Navy in the air. The Royal Naval Air Service was founded in 1914, merged into the Royal Air Force in 1918 and the Fleet Air Arm was formed in 1924. The museum has over 90 aircraft – biplanes from the very early days of powered flight to jets of the supersonic age – in four large exhibition halls. So it covers the First World War, battling Zeppelin airships, through the Second World War, including the Battle of the Atlantic, the Korean War (1950-53) and the Falklands War of 1982, right up to the Gulf Wars, Bosnia and Afghanistan. It also houses the first British Concorde, which you can go on board. There are thousands of other artefacts, too; it is Europe’s largest naval aviation museum. It is also worth seeing the ‘Aircraft Carrier Experience’, a fascinating tour round a life-size realistic mocked-up carrier. The museum is exceptionally well laid out and, unlike many modern museums, does not patronise the visitor, whilst being equally appealing to older children.