The Paul Morgan Hall

The Paul Morgan Hall is named for one of Sywell’s much-missed personalities, an aviator and engineer, sadly killed in an accident in his Sea Fury on 12th May 2001.

We could not call ourselves the Sywell Aviation Museum without in-depth coverage of Sywell Aerodrome’s own history, so the Paul Morgan Hall is devoted to Sywell itself.

Opened in  1928, the airfield has seen many events in its own lifetime. Many famous faces have visited the aerodrome and it has been important in wartime and postwar aviation.

Aircraft construction and maintenance was and still is an important part of Sywell,  together with pilot training, scheduled passenger services, and historic aviation.

Housed within the Sywell Hall we have a trio of trainers – an original  “Link” trainer displayed with interesting artefacts from one of the original wartime instructors, a nose section from a post-war de Havilland Chimpunk T.Mk.10 and another nose section from a cold war de Havilland Vampire T.Mk.11.

The aerodrome’s civilian story during the 1930s and beyond is told as is the history of its resident wartime unit, No 6 Elementary Flying Training School.

The following photographs were kindly supplied by Joe O’Brian and show various Wellington bombers and DC-3 Dakota’s under maintenance.