Sywell Aviation Museum (SAM) is a voluntary, non-profit-making organisation which aims to preserve the history of Sywell Aerodrome and Northamptonshire's rich aviation heritage from the early days of aviation to the Second World War and beyond. SAM began life in 1998 and the Museum building was opened in 2001 by the legendary aviator Alex Henshaw MBE who is also our honorary president. Alex flew from Sywell regularly during the Second World War, airtesting Vickers Wellingtons from the aerodrome so we were honoured that he agreed to launch our small Museum.

The Museum originally consisted of three Nissen huts, dismantled at thew now-closed RAF Bentwaters and erected on site at Sywell. The buildings themselves are artefacts having been used as bomb fuzing sheds at Bentwaters by the USAAF during WW2. The Museum expanded in 2010 and 2011 withthe addition of two new Nissen huts, formerly POW Camp Huts from Snape Farm, Derbyshire.

The first hut (opened during Easter 2011) was named The Paul Morgan Hall and houses the Museum's cockpit collection and a complete WW2 Link Trainer. The second hall (opened in Easter 2012) includes an expanded USAAF Hall and a new POW/Luftwaffe exhibition. The Museum's first complete airframe, a Hawker Hunter F.2 WN904, was acquired in summer 2012 followed by the cockpit of English Electric Canberra TT.18 WH887 in 2014.

March 2021 saw the arrival of the Museum's second complete airframe - Handley Page Jetstream MK1 G-RAVL -which was donated by Cranfield University and is to be restored as a classroom. Victor Lima was the demonstrator for Jetstream Ltd based at Sywell in the early 1970s when production recommenced and won the Daily Express National Air Race (as N1035S 'Race197) on 12th June 1971 between Sywell and Biggin Hill.