Founded in the 1970’s the City of Norwich Aviation Museum holds a collection of over 20,000 exhibits which are related to the aviation heritage of Norfolk.
It was a lazy Sunday. We all wanted to go out somewhere, but we only had a couple of hours to spare. I’ve suggested visiting City of Norwich Aviation Museum before and have been out-voted. This time when I suggested it, I asked my boys “do you want to go and see some cool aeroplanes?” and they both said “yep.”
We didn’t spend too much time looking at the displays of aviation history. Unfortunately with young boys it’s difficult to get them to pay interest that to things that don’t move – especially when there’s a bunch of “army planes” (as my 4 year old calls them) to see!
So, we went straight outside to see the planes. What strikes you immediately is the good use of space. Unlike other aviation museums CNAM is not blessed with acres of space, but it manages to pack in a good selection of aircraft.
We really enjoyed wandering around, peering inside the occasional cockpit, admiring the paintwork, the aerodynamic shapes and imagining the power of these machines.
The boys particularly enjoyed going inside the Nimrod. This giant of the sky made it’s final operational flight in 2010, yet going inside was like travelling back in time as many of the operational equipment looked like it had been in since the 1970’s. A bonus for the kids was the undercarriage was open too, so they thought it was brilliant running underneath the Nimrod. I was tempted, but as there was several other visitors around I decided against crawling under the belly of this RAF plane.
Being positioned right next to Norwich International Airport it also has moving planes and helicopters too! We spent a fair bit of time at the fence watching people flying off to holiday destinations. And for kids there’s something fascinating about watching helicopters buzzing around!
