Who does not like plane spotting?  It is great fun and is brilliant for practising your photographic skills as the planes land and take off.  Whilst searching for a new place to visit I came across the East Midlands Aeropark.  The aeropark is a small museum that is the home for several famous planes that took to the skies in years gone by.  The close proximity of the park to the runway of East Midlands Airport has the added advantage that it allows you to view the planes coming in and out.

Arriving at the Aeropark, the sun was shinning with few clouds in the sky. Perfect viewing conditions.  My grandson, Noah was so excited about the visit and our first port of call was the going inside a VC10.  Whilst on board there was the original “see through” scale model of the plane and an opportunity to visit the cockpit.  Noah was allowed to sit in the left hand side pilot’s flying seat. Whilst sitting there, he listened attentively to the kind volunteer who explained all about the buttons.  Noah pressed a lot of buttons!  The volunteers were so kind and treated him as a grown up, although they did say that moving the steering wheel around violently may spill a few gin and tonics in the back of the plane!  Sandy my wife once flew on VC10s to the far east on a regular basis during holidays from boarding school, so it was a trip down memory lane for her.

The overall theme of the visit was how friendly the place was and all the volunteers were so keen to help out.  One of the volunteers, Carl, saw that I was taking photographs and gave me access to look over the wings of the Avro Vulcan bomber.  For me this was my highlight of the visit.

What else was there to photograph?  A Sea King helicopter, a Meteor, a BAC Lightning and a BAe Nimrod plus many others as listed on the website. There is a shop with refreshments and the obligatory toy plane for Noah.  There were many plane engines in there as well.

We did not forget about the plane spotting, and we spent time on one of the mounds overlooking the runway watching the planes land.  Luckily the landing was happening on the east part of the runway so we could watch the planes hanging in the air as they came into land.

I would highly recommend a visit to this museum.  It is well worth the admission price and if you have young children or anyone with an interest in flying then you will not be disappointed.

Here are some links to the East Midlands Aeropark and the East Midlands Airport.

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