It was known as a place of pioneering experiments including the first airmail, the first parachute descent from a powered aircraft, the first night flights and the first aerial defence of a city.

Inspired by Louis Blériot's flight across the Channel, Everett, Edgecumbe and Co began to experiment with an aircraft to be built at their works at Colindale near Hendon, erecting a small hangar to house it.

In 1906, before any powered flight had taken place in Britain, the Daily Mail newspaper had challenged aviators to fly from London to Manchester or vice versa, offering a prize of £10,000.

[1] Aircraft and engine design had improved sufficiently by 1910 to make an attempt to win the prize realistic, and both Claude Grahame-White and the French aviator Louis Paulhan prepared for the challenge during April 1910.

An estimated three million people turned out across London, forming a human ring around the race circuit to see the aviators fly round the metropolis.

[8][9] Several flying schools were located at Hendon, including Grahame-White's, and another established in 1914 by the American aviator George Beatty, in partnership with Handley Page Ltd.

[10][11] On 11 September 1916, Cicely Ethel Wilkinson qualified as a pilot in a Caudron biplane at the Beatty School at the aerodrome for which she received Royal Aero Club Aviator Certificate number 3522.

After the war the airfield was increasingly unsuitable, particularly because the runways were too short, and the proximity of large residential areas made matters worse.

[18] The entrance to the aerodrome can be seen in "the parade" scene in the 1967 film The Dirty Dozen, with at one point a Kirby Cadet glider of the then-resident 617 Volunteer Gliding School of the Air Training Corps launching in the background.

Late in 1968, when two of the three runways had been removed, a Blackburn Beverley was flown in to be an exhibit at the new RAF Museum: this was the last aircraft to land at Hendon.

The museum consists of several buildings containing a range of permanent exhibitions including "Our Finest Hour" in the Battle of Britain Hall which was designed, produced and installed by specialist theme park and museum designers Sarner Ltd,[47] the award-winning "Milestones of Flight" which details the major developments in flight technology from 1903 to 2003, two buildings containing various aircraft and helicopters, and part of the Grahame-White Factory, which contains many examples of original aircraft from the First World War and the early days of aviation.

Added in 2018, as part of the RAF Centenary exhibitions, were a Westland Sea King helicopter (once flown by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge), a Gnat jet trainer of the Red Arrows, and a full-scale mock-up of the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter.