Royal Air Force Museum Cosford

The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford was born out of the Aerospace Museum which opened on 1 May 1979. The Aerospace Museum grew from a collection of historic ground instructional airframes on inventory at Royal Air Force Cosford. Other aircraft were added to the collection from the RAF's Reserve Collections of Historic Aircraft scattered about the Country. The Trustees of the Royal Air Force Museum took over the management of the collection, under a Ministry of Defence Management Agreement, as a Museum independent of the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, and employed two staff.

The Aerospace Museum was not Government funded directly but enjoyed rent and rates free accommodation on the Station at Royal Air Force Cosford. The Station Commander was responsible for all costs relating to utilities, the maintenance of land and buildings and the conservation of the MOD owned historic aircraft. The General Manager of the site was responsible for all other running costs and funds were raised from admission fees and profits from shop, café and events.

The Museum continued to grow until 1995 when forward plans indicated that expenditure would overtake income by 1998 if public facilities were not improved and visitor numbers increased.

Applications were made to the Heritage Lottery Fund, the European Regional Development Fund and an appeal was launched to build a Visitor Centre in which to accommodate first class public facilities and a conference centre.

In addition, an art gallery, a temporary exhibitions gallery and two other subject galleries were built making in all, a total project value of £3.6m and the new project was opened by His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester on 21 June 1998.

On 13 May 2002, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael Beetham opened a new Conservation Centre named after him. This Centre is the culmination of seven years of planning to move the RAF Museum's Reserve Collection to Stafford and the Conservation Centre to Cosford, from Cardington in Bedfordshire.

The development of the Cosford site continued apace with the construction of the National Cold War Exhibition, for which funding was once again sourced from the National Lottery, European and Local Development grants. After a construction period of just over a year, the National Cold War Exhibition, was opened on 2nd of February 2007 by HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne; an opening which was also attended by Baroness Thatcher, former UK Prime Minister and Air Chief Marshall of the Royal Air Force Sir Glenn Torpy GCB CBE DSO ADC BSc(Eng) FRAeS FCGI.