The Gatwick Aviation Museum is located in the village of

Charlwood Charlwood is a village and civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England. It is immediately northwest of London Gatwick Airport in West Sussex, close west of Horley and north of Crawley. The Historic counties of England, historic co ...

, in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

on the boundary of

Gatwick Airport Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after H ...

History

Originally started in 1987 as a private collection by local businessman Peter Vallance, the museum became a registered charity in 1999 with the objective of providing awareness of local aviation history and as an educational centre for the general public, particularly for local students and schoolchildren. A close relationship exists between the museum and the

Central Sussex College Crawley College is a college of further education in West Sussex. It offers courses ranging from Sixth form and Adult education to undergraduate courses through partnerships with universities. History Crawley College was formed in 2017 after a ...

which uses the museum's facilities to provide practical training for the students taking aerospace courses. The museum has a varied collection of aircraft, aircraft engines and over 500 aircraft models. The museum also has displays and artefacts related to local aviation history particularly

. Subject to serviceability, certain aircraft including the Avro Shackleton MR3,

Blackburn Buccaneer The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British carrier-capable attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy (RN). Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough, it was later officially known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccanee ...

S1,

English Electric Lightning F.53 The English Electric Lightning is a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It was capable of a top speed of above Mach 2. The Lightning was designed, developed, and manufa ...

and Percival Sea Prince can are usually capable of performing engine runs for visitors on special event days. The museum had been in dispute since July 2011 with

Mole Valley Mole Valley is a local government district in Surrey, England. Its council is based in Dorking. The other town in the district is Leatherhead. The largest villages are Ashtead, Fetcham and Great Bookham, in the northern third of the district. ...

District Council concerning planning permission, as, despite its co-location with Gatwick Airport, the council refused permission for a permanent museum site due to a concern over the height of the proposed new building and the location within the

Metropolitan Green Belt The Metropolitan Green Belt is a statutory green belt around London, England. It comprises parts of Greater London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey, parts of two of the three districts of Bedfordshire and a s ...

. Vallance lodged a planning appeal against the decision in January 2012, which was dismissed in June of that year. On 14 January 2013, Vallance died during heart surgery but since then, the museum has been run by a charitable trust set up by Vallance to cover this eventuality and the museum's planning permission was approved in 2015.

Reopened

In 2016, the new museum building first opened to the public. It houses many aircraft formerly kept outdoors although others in the collection, including some noteworthy examples, were disposed of by the trust in 2013. A shop, refreshment area,

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

and information on the history of

can also be found in the building. The museum is open to the public every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Vallance Airstrip

Vallance Airstrip was a small grass airstrip located in the grounds of the Gatwick Aviation Museum and within Class Delta Airspace with airliners continually departing and arriving on Gatwick's adjacent runway situated roughly 400 metres to the south. The airstrip was named after Gatwick Aviation Museum founder Peter Vallance and used occasionally by light aircraft including a resident Cessna. Before operating there, all pilots had to have prior permission and a briefing from the airstrip owners, Terminal Control Gatwick and Gatwick Aerodrome Control. The airstrip ceased to be used from late 2018 / early 2019.

Aircraft on Display

Outside

* Avro Shackleton Mk.3 PH3 ("J" WR982) * Blackburn Buccaneer S1 (XN923) * Hawker Hunter F51 * Percival Sea Prince T1 (WP308)

Indoors

* English Electric Lightning F53 (53-671) * de Havilland Sea Vixen TT.8 (XS587) * de Havilland Venom FB50 (J1605) * Gloster Meteor T7 (VZ638) * Hawker Hunter T7 (XL591) * Hawker Sea Hawk FB5 (XE364) * Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR3 (XV751)

Nose Sections/Cockpits

Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander The Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander is a British light utility aircraft and regional airliner designed and originally manufactured by Britten-Norman of the United Kingdom. Still in production, the Islander is one of the best-selling commercial air ...

English Electric Canberra The English Electric Canberra is a British first-generation, jet-powered medium bomber. It was developed by English Electric during the mid- to late 1940s in response to a 1944 Air Ministry requirement for a successor to the wartime de Havil ...

English Electric Lightning The English Electric Lightning is a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It was capable of a top speed of above Mach 2. The Lightning was designed, developed, and manufa ...

Engines on Display

Armstrong Siddeley Double Mamba The Armstrong Siddeley Double Mamba is a turboprop engine design developed in the late 1940s of around . It was used mostly on the Fairey Gannet anti-submarine aircraft developed for the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. Design and developmen ...

Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire The Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire is a British turbojet engine that was produced by Armstrong Siddeley in the 1950s. It was the ultimate development of work that had started as the Metrovick F.2 in 1940, evolving into an advanced axial flow de ...

Armstrong Siddeley Viper The Armstrong Siddeley Viper is a British turbojet engine developed and produced by Armstrong Siddeley and then by its successor companies Bristol Siddeley and Rolls-Royce Limited. It entered service in 1953 and remained in use with the Royal ...

Bristol Centaurus The Centaurus was the final development of the Bristol Engine Company's series of sleeve valve radial aircraft engines. The Centaurus is an 18-cylinder, two-row design that eventually delivered over . The engine was introduced into service lat ...

Bristol Hercules The Bristol Hercules is a 14-cylinder two-row radial aircraft engine designed by Sir Roy Fedden and produced by the Bristol Engine Company starting in 1939. It was the most numerous of their single sleeve valve ( Burt-McCollum, or Argyll, typ ...

Bristol Proteus The Bristol Proteus was the Bristol Engine Company's first mass-produced gas turbine engine design, a turboprop that delivered just over 4,000 hp (3,000 kW). The Proteus was a reverse-flow gas turbine. Because the second turbine drov ...

Continental O-200 The Continental C90 and O-200 are a family of air-cooled, horizontally opposed, four-cylinder, direct-drive aircraft engines of 201 in³ (3.29 L) displacement, producing between 90 and 100 horsepower (67 and 75 kW).''Federal Aviation Admini ...

de Havilland Ghost The de Havilland Ghost (originally Halford H-2) was the de Havilland Engine Company's second design of a turbojet engine to enter production and the world's first gas turbine engine to enter airline service (with British Overseas Airways Corpo ...

de Havilland Gipsy Minor The de Havilland Gipsy Minor or Gipsy Junior is a British four-cylinder, air-cooled, inline engine that was used primarily in the de Havilland Moth Minor monoplane, both products being developed in the late 1930s. Design and development The ...

de Havilland Gipsy Queen The de Havilland Gipsy Queen is a British six-cylinder aero engine of capacity that was developed in 1936 by the de Havilland Engine Company. It was developed from the de Havilland Gipsy Six for military aircraft use. Produced between 1936 a ...

de Havilland Goblin The de Havilland Goblin, originally designated as the Halford H-1, is an early turbojet engine designed by Frank Halford and built by de Havilland. The Goblin was the second British jet engine to fly, after Whittle's Power Jets W.1, and the f ...

de Havilland Gyron Junior The de Havilland Gyron Junior was a military turbojet engine design of the 1950s developed by the de Havilland Engine Company and later produced by Bristol Siddeley. The Gyron Junior was a scaled-down derivative of the de Havilland Gyron. ...

General Electric CF6 The General Electric CF6, US military designations F103 and F138, is a family of high-bypass turbofan engines produced by GE Aviation. Based on the TF39, the first high-power high-bypass jet engine, the CF6 powers a wide variety of civilian ai ...

* Rolls-Royce Avon 122 * Rolls-Royce Avon 208 * Rolls-Royce Avon 301 * Rolls-Royce Avon RA2 *

Rolls-Royce Dart The Rolls-Royce RB.53 Dart is a turboprop engine designed and manufactured by Rolls-Royce Limited. First run in 1946, it powered the Vickers Viscount on its maiden flight in 1948. A flight on July 29 of that year, which carried 14 paying passe ...

Rolls-Royce Derwent The Rolls-Royce RB.37 Derwent is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine, the second Rolls-Royce jet engine to enter production. It was an improved version of the Rolls-Royce Welland, which itself was a renamed version of Fran ...

* Rolls-Royce Griffon 58 *

Rolls-Royce Merlin The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later ...

Rolls-Royce Nene The Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine. The Nene was a complete redesign, rather than a scaled-up Rolls-Royce Derwent"Rolls-Royce Aero Engines" Bill Gunston, Patrick Stephens Limited 1989, , p.111 w ...

* Rolls-Royce Olympus 320 *

Rolls-Royce Pegasus The Rolls-Royce Pegasus, formerly the Bristol Siddeley Pegasus, is a British turbofan engine originally designed by Bristol Siddeley. It was manufactured by Rolls-Royce plc. The engine is not only able to power a jet aircraft forward, but also ...

Rolls-Royce Spey The Rolls-Royce Spey (company designations RB.163 and RB.168 and RB.183) is a low-bypass turbofan engine originally designed and manufactured by Rolls-Royce that has been in widespread service for over 40 years. A co-development version of th ...

Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour The Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour is a two-shaft low bypass turbofan aircraft engine developed by Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Limited, a joint venture between Rolls-Royce (UK) and Turbomeca (France). The engine is named after the Adour, a river in so ...

Turbomeca Artouste The Turbomeca Artouste is an early French turboshaft engine, first run in 1947. Originally conceived as an auxiliary power unit (APU), it was soon adapted to aircraft propulsion, and found a niche as a powerplant for turboshaft-driven helicopter ...

* Turbomeca Palouste

References

Registered Charity No. 1075858
* * Gatwick Aviation Museum - Official Guide

External links

Gatwick Aviation Museum
{{authority control Aerospace museums in England Museums in Surrey Gatwick Airport