Objects Transfer Programme

Transfers from the Royal Air Force Museum’s National Collection

The purpose of the RAF Museum is to share the story of the Royal Air Force, past, present and future – using the narratives of its people and our collections in order to engage, inspire and encourage learning. We do this through our two public sites, in the Midlands and London, and though other relevant organisations and heritage sites across the UK and the world.

Following our RAF Centenary celebrations in 2018 and the development of our 2030 Strategy, we refocused our commitment to ensuring that every object in our collection holds relevance to the RAF Story. To this end, the Museum commenced a Collections Review ensuring that our objects supported this vision. Through the Review, we are ensuring historic aviation artefacts are transferred to appropriate homes, receive continuous care and are enjoyed by the public.

The transfer process follows the Museum’s Collection Development Policy and the Museums Association’s Off the Shelf Toolkit with priority for gifting given to organisations within the UK public domain.

The current Review phase encompasses objects from a number of discrete collection groups (see lists below). The RAF Museum is advertising these simultaneously to aid UK public domain organisations to identify relevant material and, in due course, collect the objects which they may be awarded…

Organisations are asked to submit initial expressions of interest no later than 20 April 2026. We regret that we are unable to process any expressions received after this date.

Please note that the information given constitutes the entirety of the condition, hazard, dimension, weight and suggested use information for each item available. We are unable to provide any additional information on these objects including imagery.

To submit an initial expression of interest in an advertised object/s, please complete our online form.

To complete the expression of interest you will need to provide your organisation’s name, identify your organisation’s status and whether it qualifies as a UK public domain organisation, provide a relevant point of contact, provide a second email address to a shared organisation inbox, and provide the accession number/s for the objects in which you wish to express an interest.

Following the closure of the EOI stage, the RAF Museum will identify objects with multiple and single bids and gradually contact organisations to confirm the material they can receive through transfer. We anticipate this completing this process in late 2027, although the precise timeframe will depend on the level of interest we receive.

Initial expressions of interest must be submitted through the process outlined above and alternative submissions will not be accepted. Organisations are encouraged to consider what objects they can realistically accept if successful.

Owing to the number of objects advertised, we will not be responding to individual enquiries.