Solway Aviation Museum

Set on the live Carlisle Airport site, this volunteer-run museum gathers post-war British jet aircraft, aviation artefacts and engines. The headline exhibit is an Avro Vulcan bomber, and visitors can usually climb into its cockpit when tours are running. Other aircraft on display include a Canberra, a Gloster Meteor, a Lightning and a Wessex helicopter, while an indoor gallery covers wartime RAF airfields in the Carlisle area and the Blue Streak missile programme tested at Spadeadam. Engines range from early piston designs to a Rolls-Royce Merlin and an early Frank Whittle jet unit. Children with an interest in planes, history or science will find plenty to look at, and the museum is a good rainy-day stop as well as a fine outdoor browse around the static aircraft. Staff ask that young children are supervised closely around the airframes.