The museum is housed in the original wartime buildings of RAF East Fortune which is a well preserved World War II airfield.

The collections date back to 1909 when the Royal Scottish Museum acquired Percy Pilcher's Hawk glider.

The growth in the aircraft collection led to the decision to open a Museum of Flight at East Fortune, with the public admitted for the first time on 7 July 1975.

The museum acquired the BAC 1-11, Vickers Viscount, Boeing 707 forward fuselage and Hawker Siddeley Trident cockpit.

[5] The museum collections have expanded into one of the most important in the UK, covering all aspects of aviation including military, civil and recreational.

[citation needed]This resulted in the museum putting their Boeing 707 fuselage section on display from April 2010, with a collection of BOAC crew and passenger artefacts, including a 1960s stewardess uniform.

The rest of the collections, only some of which are on display, include: This hangar is not always open to visitors, however tours are offered by the museum regularly and contains many aircraft either in storage or receiving conservation work.

Aircraft currently in storage include a Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B, McDonnell Douglas F-4S Phantom II (Previously an F-4J), a Vickers Viscount (currently disassembled), a Hawker Siddeley Nimrod forward section, a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, and a Percival Provost T.1.

Aircraft on display include the Spitfire, Bolingbroke, Meteor, Tornado and Jaguar, as well as the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet flown by Captain Eric Brown.

There is a display of air-to-air weapons, including an M1918 Savage-Lewis machine gun, a Browning 0.303 inch machine gun, a Hispano-Suiza 20mm cannon, an AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile, and air-to-ground weapons including a flechette, a Target indicator and a Fritz X guided bomb.