The new Jet Age exhibition at the National Museum of Flight is proving extremely popular with our visitors. The centrepiece of the displays is the forward fuselage of Boeing 707 G-APFJ in its striking blue and white British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) livery. The aircraft was very generously donated to National Museums Scotland by British Airways.
This year marks the aircraft’s 50th birthday, on 24 September. It was on that day back in 1960 when the aircraft was issued with its Certificate of Airworthiness by the Civil Aviation Authority. This allowed to aircraft to begin passenger-carrying flights with BOAC soon afterwards, and it remained in service until 25 May 1981, when it made its last commercial flight from Athens to Gatwick. The aircraft was displayed at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford until 2006 when the forward fuselage came to the National Museum of Flight.
To support the exhibition we have collected a wide variety of BOAC material, including menus, training manuals, crockery, passenger souvenirs, crew uniforms, etc, etc. We are still building our collections relating to commercial aviation and would be happy to consider any offers of items from BOAC or other airlines.
Why not celebrate our Boeing 707’s 50th birthday with a visit to The Jet Age at the National Museum of Flight?