A REVAMPED museum has officially reopened its doors.

The Army Flying museum in Middle Wallop unveiled its fresh new look to the public on April 1 after a five-month redevelopment costing £2.59 million.

Since the museum’s closure in November 2018, visitors can now see new aircrafts, exhibits, better lighting, a whole host of interactives and audio visual displays.

Featuring an important three-year community, educational and volunteer programme, there is also a new learning and schools programme, oral history project, pop-up museum, internship programme, and kids club on site

The funding for the re-development came from a Heritage Lottery Fund and was matched by a further £900,000 raised by the Museum itself.

Chris Munns, chief executive officer, said: “This is an important milestone and a testament to all those that have helped with the planning of the project and the excellent support that we have received from the volunteers.

“Once you get inside you will

notice the difference straight

away.

“The museum has been completely relaid out so that it is in a much more logical order.

“There are new graphic panels, new aircraft and an attack helicopter audio visual display that’s going to run every hour, which is really fantastic.”

Delivery of the project has been undertaken by a combination of volunteers and contractors, with one of the major areas of the work, redisplaying the aircraft collection, led by volunteer engineers.

Susan Lindsay, curator, said: “We’ve brought our story up to date, we’ve made it more interactive, we’ve including lots more personal stories, and we’ve made our collections much more accessible to our visitors.”

The AFM is the only museum in the world dedicated to telling the internationally significant story of British Army flying and famous operations, from glider landings in Normandy on the eve of D-Day to operations in Suez, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan.