Sywell Aviation Museum- Double Award Winning news and new items-update lots of pics!

SYWELL AVIATION MUSEUM DOUBLE AWARD WINNER AT NORTHANTS HERITAGE AWARDS 2013

We are delighted to report that Sywell Aviation Museum triumphed twice at the annual Northamptonshire Heritage Awards held at Boughton House, Northants on the 18th July 2013. The first award was for Best Special Project which the Museum won (against stiff competition – it was the most hotly contested category of the night with 6 shortlisted projects) for Operation Hawker Hunter which placed the ONLY aircraft on Public display in Northamptonshire in 2012.

The second award was voted for by you – the Public! The Museum was voted YOUR favourite Museum in the PEOPLES’ CHOICE CATEGORY – you, our vistors, friends and supporters all filled out voting forms and we were absolutely stunned to discover we had won – against HLF funded museums, those with paid full time staff and professional PR and fundraising teams! This award is the real cherry on the cake for us as it is voted for by YOU making us the Public’s favourite Museum in Northamptonshire!

Thank you so much to you all – it means a huge amount to our volunteer team! Also big thanks to Northants Museums & Historice Houses Forum and BBC Radio Northampton for their support – to listen to the post-awards radio interview click below (about 42 mins in)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bww7c

This seems a good time to do a Museum update! Lanscaping around the Hunter is now complete with new fencing, flowerbeds and more! The Museum is also undergoing a FULL external repaint in a more authentic WW2 olive drab green.

Heidi the Hunter also now has her original powerplant on display – namely a sectioned Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Jet Engine delivered about ten days ago thanks to the kind offices of The Aeroplane Collection, Hooton Park, Liverpool ( http://www.theaeroplanecollection.org/ )who made a superb job of restoring the unit and have placed it on loan with us – what a top bunch of blokes!. For more on the Sapphire, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Siddeley_Sapphire

In addition, Heidi now has her teeth back! A 30mm ADEN Cannon , of which she carried four, has been acquired and will be placed on display shortly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADEN_cannon

in addition the Museum has recently received further additions to its Ordnance Collection – a Bae Skyflash Air to Air Missile from the top fellows at Newark Air Museum (thanks Dave!) and the final one for the Museum’s ‘set’ of WW2 unguided rockets – a 60lb RP3 Rocket Projectile courtesy of an exchange with The Royal Air Force Museum, Stafford. The RP3 was used extensively in the latter part of WW2 and the 60lb version was very successful when used by Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers against German Armour – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-3 . Skyflash was a British upgrade of the American AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile and following its introduction in 1978 was only phased out in 2006 with the replacement of the Tornado F.3 with the Eurofighter Typhoon. This missile then, brings our collection bang up to date! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyflash. There is more exciting news to come in due course including a new aircraft addition to the Museum…….

The Museum is open every weekend and bank holiday between 1030-1630 until the end of September – do come over and see us and see what the fuss is all about – after all we are now Northamptonshire’s Favourite Museum of 2013 – as voted for by YOU!