The Aviation Heritage Museum provides a unique museum experience of civilian and military aviation through its extraordinary aviation displays, helpful guides and special tours. The Museum’s talented volunteers have designed, donated and built a truly amazing array of aviation displays that include 30 aircraft and thousands of artefacts. From the helpful gift shop attendants to the meticulous restorers, the Museum’s hundreds of volunteers have truly built one of the most unique museums in the Southern Hemisphere or even the World
Our primary purpose is to provide facilities and displays for the education of visitors, including children, and to encourage the enjoyment of aviation. Our main focus is aviation history, both in general, and as it pertains to the unique Santa Paula Airport and its rich history of pilots and others associated with it.
Ballarat Aviation museum is a unique collection of aircraft, engines and aviation memorabilia from the 1920s to the present day.
The museum is based in the former USAF hardened command post on the former Bentwaters airfield, we believe that currently this is the only such building open to the public in the UK and Europe. The main “war operations room” and “Battle cabin” have been restored to original condition, the BT telephone exchange room, and decontamination showers and airlock are also as original. Other rooms within the building have been turned into exhibition rooms, covering the history of RAF Bentwaters from W.W.II until the base closed in 1993. Included in this are histories of the units that operated form the airfield, particularly the 81st FW.
Another room is dedicated to the history of the other airfield which was part of the “twin base” complex RAF Woodbridge, again covering the period from WWII until the present day. We have other exhibition rooms featuring information on the “Special Operations/Rescue Squadrons” that were based at RAF Woodbridge, as well as the “Aggressor” Squadron based at Bentwaters.
The Hangar houses an amazing collection of airworthy Spitfires, probably the greatest concentration of Spitfire activity in the world, plus several others undergoing restoration by the Spitfire Company (Biggin Hill) Ltd. In addition the collection also includes an airworthy Hawker Hurricane Mk I, Europe’s oldest flying Harvard and a 1944 ex-USAAF Piper L4 Grasshopper.
