Brooklands Museum, Weybridge
On the Vickers and BAC works. Holds Concorde G-BBDG and a VC10 among Vickers and BAC-built aircraft.
The types
BAC aircraft you can see
| Type | First flew | Built | UK museums |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hunting Jet ProvostT.3–T.5 | 1954 | 741 | 24 |
| Fairey Delta 2 / BAC 221 | 1954 | 2 | 2 |
| English Electric LightningF.1A–F.6 | 1954 | 337 | 25 |
| Vickers VC10+ Super VC10 | 1962 | 54 | 6 |
| BAC Strikemaster & Bulldog | 1963 | ~470 | 7 |
| BAC One-Eleven | 1963 | 244 | 5 |
| BAC TSR.2 | 1964 | 3 (1 flew) | 2 |
| Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde | 1969 | 20 | 7 |
The firm
BAC in brief
BAC inherited works including Weybridge, Filton, Warton and Luton. The One-Eleven airliner, launched as a private venture in 1961, kept it solvent. The TSR.2 strike aircraft flew but was cancelled in 1965. BAC built Concorde with Sud Aviation, the Jaguar with Breguet through SEPECAT, and the Tornado with MBB and Fiat through Panavia. The Strikemaster light attack jet sold to Saudi Arabia and others.
On 29 April 1977 BAC was nationalised. It merged with Hawker Siddeley Aviation and Scottish Aviation to form British Aerospace.
Aerospace Bristol, Filton
Filton assembled the British Concordes. Concorde Alpha Foxtrot, the last to fly, is on show.
Where to go
Museums holding BAC aircraft
| Museum | BAC types | Adult entry | Airframes | Headline exhibit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IWM DuxfordCambridge, Cambridgeshire | 6 | £29 | 146 | Concorde 101 (G-AXDN), the pre-production development aircraft and the fastest Concorde of them all at Mach 2.23 — plus an SR-71A… |
| Royal Air Force Museum MidlandsShifnal, Shropshire | 6 | Free | 78 | TSR-2 XR220, one of two survivors of the most gifted aircraft Britain ever cancelled, sharing floor space with the stainless-steel… |
| Boscombe Down Aviation CollectionSalisbury, Wiltshire | 3 | £13.50 | 49 | The Lancaster cockpit reproduction tour, and a test-and-evaluation pedigree collection you can physically inhabit rather than admire… |
| Bournemouth Aviation MuseumChristchurch, Dorset | 3 | £10 | 29 | The sit-anywhere policy itself — one entry fee, no per-cockpit charges, a full BAC 1-11 flight-deck sim in a shed, and thousands… |
| Brooklands MuseumWeybridge, Surrey | 3 | £24–£27 | 32 | Concorde G-BBDG, the British production-test aircraft, bookended by a Wellington bomber dredged out of Loch Ness in 1985 and the only… |
| East Midlands AeroparkDerby, Leicestershire | 3 | £5 | 35 | East Midlands Aeropark: a Vulcan, Nimrod R1 and Buccaneer parked on grassy mounds overlooking EMA's runway — half museum, half premier… |
| Fleet Air Arm MuseumYeovil, Somerset | 3 | £21 | 97 | Concorde 002 (G-BSST), the first British-assembled Concorde, which made her maiden flight from Filton in 1969 and now headlines a hall of… |
| Newark Air MuseumNewark, Nottinghamshire | 3 | £12.50 | 95 | Vulcan XM594, with cockpit tours occasionally given by former Vulcan aircrew, which reviewers describe with the reverence normally… |
| South Wales Aviation MuseumBarry, Vale of Glamorgan | 3 | £10 | 73 | The resident Harrier and a growing VC10/Tornado-era collection, most with steps and open canopies. Kids exit wearing thousand-yard grins. |
| South Yorkshire Aircraft MuseumDoncaster, South Yorkshire | 3 | £7.50 | 109 | Doncaster's South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum sprawls across the old RAF Doncaster site: dozens of airframes and helicopters, strong… |
| City of Norwich Aviation MuseumNorwich, Norfolk | 2 | £9 | 33 | City of Norwich Aviation Museum at Horsham St Faith: Norfolk's largest, ~30 airframes including a Vulcan and Nimrod with bookable… |
| Farnborough Air Sciences Trust MuseumFarnborough, Hampshire | 2 | Free | 16 | FAST at Farnborough guards the birthplace of British aviation science — Cody, the RAE, wind tunnels — with sit-in Harrier, Puma and Lynx… |
| MorayviaForres, Moray | 2 | £8 | 35 | Nimrod XV244 (complete, and the crew who operated her sometimes give the tours) alongside a Sea King in RAF SAR yellow — the machine that… |
| National Museum Of FlightNorth Berwick, East Lothian | 2 | £15 | 47 | Concorde G-BOAA, which flew British Airways' first commercial supersonic service in 1976 and arrived here by barge and giant road-crawl… |
| Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation MuseumBungay, Suffolk | 2 | £10 | 65 | Depends who you ask — the joy is the oddities. Come for the Bloodhound missiles and decoy rarities; stay for volunteer flight-simulator… |
| North East Land, Sea and Air MuseumsSunderland, Tyne and Wear | 2 | £7.50 | 46 | NELSAM in Sunderland mixes Vulcan XL319 (flew in when the airport still existed), a Pucará from the Falklands, trams, buses and a… |
| RAF Manston History MuseumRamsgate, Kent | 2 | £7 | 22 | RAF Manston's history museum spans 1916 RNAS days to Cold War Meteors, with strong 1940s room-sets — and it sits next door to the… |
| Robertsbridge Aviation SocietyRobertsbridge, East Sussex | 2 | Free | 6 | Robertsbridge Aviation Society — a village-hall-sized museum of recovered WWII relics and six jet cockpit sections, curated with… |
| Royal Air Force Museum LondonLondon, Greater London | 2 | Free | 88 | Avro Lancaster R5868 'S-Sugar' — 137 operations, the RAF's highest-scoring surviving heavy — under the same roof as a Vulcan, a… |
| Solway Aviation MuseumCrosby on Eden, Cumbria | 2 | £8 | 21 | Vulcan XJ823 with pre-bookable crew-compartment visits; a Phantom, Lightning and Canberra (whose three-crew cockpit reviewers describe as… |
| Ulster Aviation Society (Maze Long Kesh)Lisburn, County Antrim | 2 | By appointment | 63 | The Shorts family — SC.1 vertical take-off research aircraft included — plus a Buccaneer, Phantom, Wildcat, and a newly arrived AV-8… |
| Yorkshire Air MuseumYork, North Yorkshire | 2 | £17 | 54 | Halifax 'Friday the 13th' — the world's only complete Halifax reconstruction, honouring the type that flew from this very field —… |
| Aerospace BristolBristol, Gloucestershire | 1 | £20 | 14 | Concorde G-BOAF, the last Concorde ever built and the last ever to fly (26 November 2003, into Filton, forever). You can board her.… |
| Avro Heritage MuseumStockport, Greater Manchester | 1 | £9 | 14 | Vulcan XM603 — the only all-white Vulcan on display anywhere, in original anti-flash nuclear livery — plus walk-in Lancaster and Nimrod… |
| Bentwaters Cold War MuseumWoodbridge, Suffolk | 1 | £7.50 | 9 | Bentwaters Cold War Museum occupies the actual USAF hardened command post — war room, battle cabin and decontamination showers intact —… |
| Cranwell Aviation Heritage MuseumSleaford, Lincolnshire | 1 | Free | 2 | Cranwell Aviation Heritage Museum: the RAF College story (and Whittle's jet experiments here) told free, small and interactively — a… |
| Gatwick Aviation MuseumGatwick, Surrey | 1 | £12.50 | 16 | Avro Shackleton WR982 (the £5 guided tour is unanimously endorsed) and a live-engined English Electric Lightning. There's also… |
| Hucknall Flight Test MuseumNottingham, Nottinghamshire | 1 | By appointment | 3 | Hucknall Flight Test Museum, on the aerodrome where Rolls-Royce flew testbeds from 1934 (and hoisted the Flying Bedstead into history),… |
| Midland Air MuseumCoventry, Warwickshire | 1 | £11 | 66 | Vulcan XL360 with cockpit access and volunteer-led tours (ask for the instrumentation talk), plus the Whittle jet heritage collection a… |
| Montrose Air Station MuseumMontrose, Angus | 1 | £10 | 14 | The 1913 fabric itself, plus the resident ghost stories (Montrose is Britain's most famously haunted airfield, a claim the volunteers… |
| RAF Air Defence Radar MuseumNorwich, Norfolk | 1 | £14 | 3 | The original 1942 Ground Controlled Interception room and its Cold War successor: Britain's actual air-defence nervous system, in situ,… |
| RAF Coltishall Heritage CentreNorwich, Norfolk | 1 | Free | 5 | RAF Coltishall's guardroom museum, curated by veterans of the base — the Jaguar force's spiritual home, free to enter on open days, with… |
| Runway Visitor Park, Manchester AirportAltrincham, Greater Manchester | 1 | £6–£15 | 5 | Concorde G-BOAC, British Airways' flagship (the 'OAC' registration was no accident), enthroned in her own glass hangar with tours from… |
| Solent SkySouthampton, Hampshire | 1 | £14 | 23 | Supermarine S.6A N248, the 1929 Schneider Trophy racer from the bloodline that begat the Spitfire — parked beneath its descendant for… |
| Stoneykirk Aviation MuseumStranraer, Dumfries and Galloway | 1 | £6 | 9 | Stoneykirk: one enthusiast's cockpit collection on a Galloway croft, Vulcan included, with tea, cakes and a perfect 5.0 rating — the… |
| Suffolk Aviation Heritage MuseumIpswich, Suffolk | 1 | £5 | 5 | Kesgrave's Suffolk Aviation Heritage Museum: a Vampire, Jet Provost and Hunter plus a strong Falklands room, run with infectious… |
| Tangmere Military Aviation MuseumChichester, West Sussex | 1 | £15 | 23 | Hawker Hunter WB188 in one-off scarlet, in which Neville Duke took the world air speed record to 727.63 mph off this coast in 1953;… |
| Thorpe Camp Visitor CentreLincoln, Lincolnshire | 1 | £7 | 5 | Thorpe Camp preserves RAF Woodhall Spa's communal site — home of 617 Squadron post-Dams — as a period village of huts, with volunteers in… |
| Wight Aviation MuseumSandown, Isle of Wight | 1 | Free | 2 | Free volunteer-run museum on Sandown airfield covering the Island's surprising aviation industry — including a full-size Black Arrow… |
| Wings Aviation MuseumHaywards Heath, West Sussex | 1 | £13 | 25 | The Wings Museum near Balcombe displays Eastern Front and D-Day aircraft archaeology in crash-site dioramas — raw, unpolished and… |
Questions
Frequently asked
Who built Concorde?
The British Aircraft Corporation and Sud Aviation, later Aérospatiale, as a joint programme. British aircraft were assembled at Filton.
When was TSR.2 cancelled?
In 1965, after the prototype had flown. Two airframes survive in UK museums; the list on this page shows where.
What happened to BAC?
It was nationalised on 29 April 1977 and merged into British Aerospace.