Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

The National Museum of Flight is located about twenty five miles east of Edinburgh and quite close to the small village of Dunbar. From central Fife, it's a journey of about seventy miles each way and eased by the ring roads avoiding central Edinburgh. The site is officially recognised as East Fortune airfield and where, over many years, an impressive collection of aircraft and missiles have been brought together for public review and exhibited both outside and within several large hangers.

In recent years, the museum has taken delivery of one the twenty supersonic Concorde aircraft built for use by British Airways and Air France and where this class was retired in 2003 following the fatal Air France Flight 4590 on 25th July 2000. It was the only fatal crash of the type and deemed due to failure of a previous aircraft using the same runway and although innocent of technical failure of its own account, neither Concorde services were particularly profitable. It's unlikely that we shall ever see aircraft of this kind again, because while technically excellent, few people could afford to use it and where the time saved on such journeys failed to provide any form of commercial advantages.

A visit to the National Museum of Flight thus features highly on our list of recommended visits outwith Fife yet easily reched from Fife.