Preserving the History of Gliding in Great Britain

The primary aim of the Gliding Heritage Centre is to preserve our British gliding heritage and make it accessible to the public. It is an educational resource where visitors can learn about the history of gliding and the more general aspects of gliding as a sport.

Gliding Heritage Centre is a registered charity (Charity No.1148972).

Situated on Lasham Airfield; home of the world famous Lasham Gliding Society, the largest gliding club in the world, the Gliding Heritage Centre is open for visits all year round, though we run regular tours on Sunday afternoons. Weather permitting, we try to fly some of our gliders on the first Sunday of each month, please see our visits page for more details.

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GHC Autumn 2018 Newsletter is Here!

Catch up on the latest happenings in the Gliding Heritage Centre in our latest autumn newsletter, read it Here.

Hangar 2 Is Open For Business!

After a build of just over a year by GHC volunteers, we are proud to open our second hangar to house the ever growing collection of GHC gliders.

At our opening event held at Lasham Airfield on the 25th August 2018, we were honored to have Sir John Allison, former chief of R.A.F. Strike Command as our guest.

Sir John flew with Gary Pullen in our T21 for a short soaring flight of 25 minutes, reminding him of his earliest gliding experiences at Coventry Gliding Club in the late 1950's.

The first single seater glider that Sir John flew was our Slingsby Prefect, which he later came to own before very genorously donating it towards our collection.

We were delighted to have over 150 supporters, donors, enthusiasts and visitors come to our opening ceremony from all over the country. Despites some initial doubts about the weather the sky cleared and we were blessed by late summer sunshine. The proceedings were opened by GHC Chairman Tony Newbery who welcomed everyone to the event and then thanked all the volunteers and benefactors for their continueing support. He then invited long time VGC and GHC member Geoff Moore to give a brief speech.

Geoff spoke about how he had been first introduced to vintage gliding by the late Chris Wills in the 1960's and had attended an auction in Germany were he bid for and won his Mu-13d.

Always keen to support the GHC, and looking for an opportunity to preserve his Mu-13, Geoff was quick to donate his Mu to the collection in the early days of the GHC. In recognition of this and the other ways he has supported us we asked him to unveil a plaque commemorating noteworthy donors to the GHC Hangar 2 project.

Next it was the turn of Sir John Allison who spoke of his support for the aims of the Gliding Heritage Centre and how he did not feel that the GHC was a museum in the tradition sense. He spoke that he loved the fact that we like to fly our aircraft and compared traditional museums to that of a moth collection where dead moths were lined up in neat rows and pinned to a board. He then cut the ribbon opening the hangar and we all flooded in.

The Gliding Heritage Centre would like to thank all our volunteers and benefactors who did so much to make the Hangar 2 project such a success. We'd also like to thank Sir John Allison and Geoff Moore for their enduring support of the Gliding Heritage Centre and for taking part in the opening ceremony.

At the Gliding Heritage Centre nothing stands still for long and we are looking towards the next stage in our development. This next stage will be in the form of a fully equipped workshop that we will use to maintain and restore our collection. We are still drawing up plans, but we hope to have details for you before too long.

Visit the GHC News Page to catch up on all the latest activities of the Gliding Heritage Centre.

If you would like more information about the Gliding Heritage Centre, or are considering a donation towards this very worthy cause, please follow the link to the Donations page.

If you would like to make a deeper commitment, then please consider joining as a Member. As a member you will have the opportunity to become more deeply involved in the activities of the organisation, to serve its aims and objectives and indeed to help shape the future of the Gliding Heritage Centre.