Westland Helicopter Museum Weston-super-Mare Somerset England XAV 6277-491
The Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-Mare is the only one in Britain and is actually the largest collection in the world. It was founded by a man named Elfan Ap Rees, who remains chairman of the museum Trustees. Located just east of the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, three miles from the coast, the museum attracted over 18, 000 visitors in 2002. The attractions are much more than the helicopters themselves, which are either outside or stored in two large hangars. The museum also documents the history of the rotor aircraft, from its origins with Leonardo da Vinci to modern day aircraft. There are also memorabilia displays and scale models of aircraft, as well as information on how a helicopter flys. Of course, there is also a souvenir/gift shop ("Heli-World"), in addition to the "Choppers Cafeteria" and the "Heli-Adventure" play area for children (which includes two real helicopters!). Helicopter flights from the museum over the beach and surrounding area are also on offer on certain days of the year. Most of the helicopters on display were donated, by private collectors who found that they could no longer support or fly some of their rotorcraft, or by various air forces and navies from around the world. For example, the Royal Flight Wessex Whirlwind (a major attraction - this helicopter was used by the British Royal Family) was kindly donated in 2002. A few have actually been bought by the museum; for example another Royal Flight aircraft was bought from a collector for something like £50, 000. There are currently over 60 aircraft at the museum, ranging from the obligatory Huey, to the Royal Flight, to a Mi-24 Hind, to a rare Kamov Ka-26 Soviet helicopter (which was found on an abandoned airfield in Germany in 1995 and brought to Britain to be restored). Pictures of the Kamov being restored at the museum can be seen here. XAV 6277-491
Size: 5428px × 3673px
Location: Westland Helicopter Museum Weston-super-Mare Somerset South West England
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: aircraft, aviation, breaking, bristol, britain, building, channel, collection, country, day, dedicated, engineers, england, english, enthusiasts, explore, families, family, graveyard, great, helicopter, helicopters, interest, interested, interests, mare, museum, park, places, play, rebuilding, resort, restoration, scrap, scrapyard, seaside, somerset, super, town, travel, uk, visitors, volunteers, west, westland, weston, weston-super-mare, young
