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The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford is located in Cosford, Shropshire. It is part of the Royal Air Force Museum which is located at both RAF Cosford and the Royal Air Force Museum London (Hendon).
It is a museum dedicated to the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force in particular. It also includes a Cold War Museum as well as several developmental aircraft, and a missile collection.
History
The museum at RAF Cosford was opened on 1st May 1979.
RAF Cosford museum is spread over two sites in the UK with the other site at the Royal Air Force Museum London at Colindale (near Hendon) in north London.
It initially exhibited airframes which had been used for technical training at RAF Cosford but later additional aircraft were added to the collection and in 1980 it was agreed that the British Airways Collection be displayed at Cosford.
On 21 June 1998 four additional galleries were opened, housing art, temporary exhibitions and other aviation subjects. On the 13th May 2002 the RAF Museum Conservation Centre at Cardington, Bedfordshire was relocated to Cosford museum.
The Cosford site includes several developmental aircraft such as those that led to the English Electric Lightning and the second prototype of the BAC TSR-2.
The National Cold War Exhibition opened at Cosford in February 2007. This exhibition houses the museum's V-bombers - Vulcan, Victor and Valiant, as well as other Cold War aircraft in a newly constructed exhibition building.
RAF Cosford is an RAF Station and is home to No 1 School of Technical Training. It has a short 3,891ft Asphalt runway and hosts an RAF Air Show every year in June.
The museum's Lincoln bomber is supposedly haunted and you can read more about it here.
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