Bournemouth Aviation Museum


The Bournemouth Aviation Museum is an aviation museum located next to Bournemouth International Airport, near the village of Hurn in Christchurch. It houses a number of aircraft, aero engines, cockpits and a double-decker bus. Unusually for such a museum, its policy is to have open cockpits and visitors are encouraged to climb into the cockpits and press knobs, turn dials, pull levers, flick switches, etc. Cockpits open in this manner include the Vulcan, Lightning and Canberra. It has a flight simulator which is free to use, operated from a mock up cockpit. The museum has recently restored a Boeing 737-200 named 'The Spirit of Peter Bath' and has created an exhibition about Sir Peter Bath and his company 'Bath Travel' inside the fuselage. It is believed that Bournemouth Aviation Museum is the only museum in Europe to include a 737-200 in its collection. Even more recently the museum has taken ownership of the forward fuselage of an ex Empire Test Pilots School BAC 1-11, quite apt considering the aircraft was built only a few hundred metres from where it rests now.

Aircraft on display

The museum does not possess a hangar, the following aircraft and aero engines are displayed externally: