Aircraft Carrier Experience

Please note for maintenance reasons out of our control their is no current access to the 'Bomb Lift' within Hall 3 - Carrier. Therefore, there is no wheelchair or buggy access to the Island Tour and Experience Chamber - access to the Flight Deck itself remains open as usual. We are sorry for the inconvenience and hope to rectify this issue soon.

Hall Three contains the Museum’s award winning Aircraft Carrier Experience. 

You will experience the thrills and sounds of a working flight deck, and feel the wind in your hair as you witness a dramatic air-sea rescue when a Buccaneer is lost over the side on the Ark Royal into the sea. You will even see a nuclear bomb.

The bomb is now disarmed but during service, its payload was 200 kilotons (Ten times the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima) and enough to wipe out a city the size of Greater London and render it uninhabitable for many years.

The bomb was carried by Buccaneer aircraft. It is rumoured that the name ‘Buccaneer' evolved in the 1950s because in the event of deployment of the bomb, pilots would wear an eye patch over one eye to protect the sight in at least one eye against the nuclear flash which is considered to be brighter than the Sun.

Inside the Ark Royal's ‘Island' is a series of faithfully reconstructed cabins and operational areas from the Bridge to the ‘Goofers Deck', which looks down onto the flight deck below.