The museum originated in 1958 when its founder, aviation writer and historian Elfan ap Rees, began to build up a private collection of rotorcraft documentation and artefacts.

Since then the museum has grown, erecting new hangarage to put the collection under cover and purchasing its 4.5-acre (1.8 ha) site outright, with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund and other grants.

By 2012, around 45 helicopters and autogyros in the museum qualified for the highest benchmark status in the National Aviation Heritage Register,[citation needed] including a number of sole prototypes and others that were the only examples in the country.

[2] The museum features many foreign helicopters, particularly Soviet-era and Eastern European craft, for example the Kamov Ka-26 Hoodlum and the Mi-24 Hind, and more modern ones such as the EH-101.

[7] The museum site has expanded to include the former RAF Weston-super-Mare control tower and the attached "pilots' building" reopened in 2018, and cleared an area ready for a new services block.