I had a spare morning between Hammerhead and Old Trafford for the FA Cup game (yes, I am a happy Fulham fan), so, I went to the Avro Heritage Museum at Woodford, near Stockport. This is a new museum on the site of the former BAE (Avro) factory, most of which is now a sprawling housing estate, although with plenty of aircraft related street names.
It is not a large museum with lots of exhibits, and the focus is on information boards telling the history of the site and the aircraft made there. The one exception is the Vulcan. That made two in two days for me, having been to Newark the day before.
They have several cockpits and do cockpit tours. I did the Lancaster one and the young guide who did the tour was excellent. I hadn't appreciated that the Lancaster only had one pilot position, although other crew members might have been trained to fly it in emergencies. 4,400 Lancasters were assembled at Woodford.
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| This is the radio operator's seat |
Of particular interest to me was the Avro York, the largest RAF transport of the Second World War. This was Churchill's plane (Ascalon) used to ferry him around the theatres of war. This included his conference with the Turkish President near Adana that I covered in my book on Turkey in WW2.
I was also interested in the adaptions they made to aircraft for the Falklands War, which I covered in my book on HMS Ambuscade. These included converting Nimrods and Vulcans into tankers, and giving Nimrods Sidewinder AAMs.
They also cover all the early WW1 and inter-war aircraft, if that is your thing.
It is well worth a visit if you are in the area.
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