The reason for the depth and breadth of East Fortune's collection has more to do with availability than sticking to a Scottish theme. Pilcher's Hawk glider and an early Wright Brothers engine (donated by the Wrights) were acquired by the then Royal Scottish Museum in the early years of the last Century with a Spitfire coming in the 1970's. Once the decision was taken to create a fully fledged aviation museum the opportunity was taken to acquire virtually anything that was offered. As Farnboroughrob says this has led to the Museum having many important exbibits which might well have ended on the scrapheap. A prime example of this is the British Rockets collection - Blue Streak, Black Arrow, Black Knight , Prospero, Skylark etc. These were 1950s and 60s cutting edge technology on a par with Concorde which have as much relevance to Scotland as Concorde and which would have been scrapped and lost forever if the Museum had not had the foresight and space to accept them when they were offered. My fear is that they will become unwanted when the glamorous crowd puller arrives and cleared out to make space for her. No doubt they will be returned to one of the storage hangars and "preserved" but I expect the opportunity will be lost to display them alongside Concorde to demonstrate that Britain's expertise in aeronautical matters in the sixties extended beyond Concorde.
As Scotland's National Aviation Museum the Mof F has dual role in preserving and educating about the History of Flight in general and also the specifically Scottish aspects of it. Now that it has a good representative "History of Flight" collection (with plenty to appeal to the casual visitor) I would like to see it concentrating on the Scottish side of things bit more.
grow45