North East Land Sea and Air Museum - 1

While on holiday on the Durham coast earlier this month we visited the North East Air Museum.  I discovered this gem on the internet and the fact that our hotel was only 20 munutes away made it something of a no-brainer as far as a visit was concerned.  The museum began life as the North East Air Museum and North East Land Museum which amalgamated and now share a site.  Located on the boundary of the old Sunderland Airport, the museum is next door to the Nissan car facrory which now occupies the rest of the airport site.
The aircraft collection consists mainly of postwar machines and their Meteor has the unusual distinction of having been the first jet fighter to travel through the Tyne Tunnel - albeit on the back of a lorry!
This post features photos of some of the aircraft - next will be some of the other exhibits.

Avro Anson - still missing a few bits.

Dassault Mystere - just like mine!

Close-up of the Mystere's cockpit - clearly it's not just badly built kits which suffer from 'clouding'.

F-84 Thunderstreak.  Only two previous owners - the US and Greek air forces.

A 'proper' aeroplane - good old EE Lightning.

The (arguably) scary end of the Lightning.

A rather nice Canberra.

Another view of the Canberra.

Vulcan XL319 - the first to have been released to an independent collection back in 1983.

For those of you wondering "that's all very well but where are the toys?"  Here they are - the museum has a collection of mostly 1/72 model aircraft.  My photos show only a small part of it.