Aerospace Bristol – aviation museum at the former Filton airfield

Updated: October 2026 – Most Concordes standing in museums today made their last flight at some point. G-BOAF made the last flight. On November 26, 2003, “Alpha Foxtrot” touched down at Filton in north Bristol – where it had first taken off 24 years earlier. After that, no Concorde ever flew again. Today it stands in a hangar of its own at Aerospace Bristol, and you can climb aboard.

For spotters, Filton is a special place. Aviation was built here for over a hundred years: from the Boxkite biplane through the Blenheim bomber to the Bristol Britannia and the British Concordes. The airfield has been closed since 2012, but the museum keeps the history alive in original hangars. This page shows you what to expect, how to take photos, how to get there and what to combine the day with.

Filton: over a hundred years of aircraft building

The story begins in 1910. The entrepreneur Sir George White founded the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company then and built the first aircraft in two sheds on Filton Hill. The first big success was the Boxkite biplane. In 1915 the Royal Flying Corps set up an airfield on the site, and in 1920 the company got the name under which it became famous: the Bristol Aeroplane Company.

In World War I the Bristol Fighter was created at Filton, which the museum itself calls a kind of “Spitfire of its time.” Between the wars came the Bulldog fighter, and in 1936 the Blenheim bomber, which was a backbone of the RAF at the start of World War II. The Beaufort, Beaufighter and other types emerged from it. According to the museum, the Filton plant counts as the largest aircraft factory in Europe during World War II.

After the war, thinking got even bigger. For the Bristol Brabazon, a huge transatlantic airliner, the runway was extended and an enormous three-bay hall, the Brabazon hangar, was built. The first flight came in 1949, but the type never entered series production. The experience flowed into the Britannia, a turboprop airliner with Bristol’s own Proteus engines. The stretched version was successful mainly in the charter business of the 1960s, for example with Britannia Airways, which took its name with the introduction of the type. The Britannia flew long-haul routes for BOAC, among others.

In 1959 the Bristol Aeroplane Company was merged into the British Aircraft Corporation. With the research aircraft Type 188 and Type 221, knowledge for supersonic flight was gathered at Filton – the foundation for the Concorde, which was built together with France at Filton and Toulouse. On April 9, 1969, Concorde 002, the British prototype, took off on its first flight at Filton, and the other British Concordes also took off from here on their first flights.

In parallel ran the engine division: Bristol radial engines such as the Mercury, Pegasus, Hercules and Centaurus powered aircraft in World War II, and the Olympus later powered the Avro Vulcan and the Concorde. Via Bristol Siddeley, the engine division came to Rolls-Royce in 1966, which still builds military engines in neighboring Patchway today. Airbus is also based on the factory site – Filton is one of the group’s British locations. At the end of 2012 BAE Systems withdrew, and the airfield closed after more than a hundred years. The last takeoffs and landings took place on December 21, 2012.

The road to the museum

After its landing in 2003, G-BOAF stood outdoors on the airfield for years. In 2007 a Concorde trust was founded with the goal of giving it a roof. The breakthrough came in 2012 from BAE Systems, which, when selling the airfield, provided the site including listed hangars and contributed money. In 2014 a large grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund followed.

In May 2016 construction of the Concorde hangar began. On February 7, 2017, technicians from British Airways and Airbus pulled the Concorde across the old airfield into its new hall – its very last journey, only a few hundred meters long. A month later a Sea Harrier arrived at the museum in an unusual way: an RAF Chinook brought it on a hook. On October 17, 2017, Aerospace Bristol opened to visitors. More about the institution itself is in the profile of Aerospace Bristol.

Concorde G-BOAF: the star of the house

The story of Alpha Foxtrot

G-BOAF is the last of twenty Concordes built. It was built at Filton without a customer order and flew for the first time on April 20, 1979 – painted white and still registered as G-BFKX. Only in June 1980 did it get its final registration and go to British Airways. The day after, the crew ferried it to Heathrow.

In scheduled service it set records. According to the museum, on January 1, 1983 it flew from New York to London in 2 hours, 56 minutes and 35 seconds – a record for a commercial Atlantic crossing that stood for five years. In 1989 it took off from Heathrow on a flight around the world.

After the end of Concorde operations at British Airways in October 2003, the aircraft were distributed to museums. Alpha Foxtrot got to fly last: on November 26, 2003, it went from Heathrow over the Bay of Biscay, in a low pass over Bristol and the Clifton Suspension Bridge and then to a landing at Filton. With this touchdown, the era of civil supersonic flight ended. How it came to that is told in the article The Concorde; technical data is on the type page for the Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde.

Visiting the Concorde hangar

The hangar is tailored entirely to the Concorde. Before you go aboard, a projection show with three short films runs on the side of the fuselage – a moment many visitors film. Then you climb in and walk through the cabin. A small gallery also shows a pilot’s uniform, a model and a cockpit area.

Outside along the fuselage, a slow walk-around is worth it. The Concorde has details you won’t find on any other airliner: the lowerable droop nose, the tall main landing gear, the ogival delta wings without a horizontal stabilizer and the box-shaped engine intakes of the Olympus 593. An Olympus 593 stands, by the way, right next to the Concorde in the hangar, so you can see the engine without cowlings.

The other halls

Exhibition hangar: seven eras

The main tour is in a listed World War I hangar. It is divided into seven eras, from the pioneers from 1903 to the present, and shows numerous exhibits – from a model to a helicopter, from a missile to a wing segment.

Of particular interest to type collectors are:

• Replicas of the early Bristol types such as the Boxkite, Scout and Bristol Fighter. The Boxkite replica is airworthy and was built for the film “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.”
• The Sea Harrier FA.2 – a naval version of the vertical-takeoff jet, which you can look up on the type page Hawker Siddeley Harrier / Sea Harrier.
• A Bristol Sycamore, one of the first helicopters developed in Britain, first flight 1947.
• The nose of a Britannia and the forward fuselage of a Beaufighter.
• The Bloodhound, a surface-to-air missile of Bristol production that served with the RAF from 1958.
• Wheels and nameplate of the Brabazon – nothing more is left of the giant.
• A wing segment of an Airbus A320 as a pointer to Filton’s modern role in the Airbus network. The type itself is introduced on the page for the Airbus A320.

The exhibition changes with loans and restorations. If you are traveling for a particular exhibit, ask the museum beforehand.

Conservation in Action: restoration to watch

In another hangar from around 1915, volunteers work on historic aircraft. Here stands the Bristol Bolingbroke 9048, a Canadian-built variant of the Blenheim. A second major project is the Bristol Type 170 Freighter NZ5911. The aircraft was built at Filton in 1953 for the Royal New Zealand Air Force, came back to Bristol in 2018 and is, according to the trade press, the only surviving example in Europe. In late summer 2026 it stood on its landing gear again and left the restoration hall; it is not yet on permanent display, though, and the work continues.

For spotters this area is an insider tip. Aircraft without skin, with open fuselages and exposed structure are otherwise hard to get in front of your lens. If behind-the-scenes work appeals to you, read the article Volunteering at aviation museums.

Hangar 16R: Rolls-Royce engines

Aerospace Bristol shows the Rolls-Royce engine collection in the visible-storage display Hangar 16R. Over 60 aero engines document the development from radial engine to jet engine. According to the museum, the area is accessible daily from 1 to 3 p.m.; guided tours cost an additional £15 per person and can be booked online. Plan your tour so that you are nearby around midday.

Photography at Aerospace Bristol

Rules

Private photos and videos are allowed in the exhibitions. There are three restrictions: no flash, no photography in the archive rooms, and commercial shoots only by arrangement. Tripods are permitted, but you may not leave them unattended. If it is crowded, staff may ask you to come back later. Drones are prohibited on the entire site. Basics on the legal situation are in the article Spotting in the UK.

Light and technique

In all four halls you work with artificial and mixed light. Because flash is prohibited, you need a high ISO setting or a fast lens. Set the white balance manually if the hall lighting creates a color cast, and shoot in RAW to adjust later.

For the Concorde at full length the hall is tight. An ultra-wide-angle lens gets the whole fuselage in the frame but distorts the nose and tail. The alternative is a panorama from several single shots with a standard focal length. Which short focal lengths work well is explained in the article Wide-angle and standard lenses for spotting.

Subjects worth shooting

Rather than struggling with the perfect full-length shot, it pays to look at details:

• Nose section of the Concorde with the nose lowered
• Engine intakes under the delta wing
• Registration G-BOAF on the tail
• Olympus 593 next to the Concorde
• Type plates and information boards of the Bristol exhibits
• Structures in the restoration hangar

If you want to reliably tell older types apart, the article Recognizing vintage aircraft in the sky helps.

Getting there: car, bus and train

Aerospace Bristol is in the north of the city, between Filton and Patchway, near the M5 motorway. According to the museum, the postcode BS34 5BZ doesn’t lead exactly to the entrance. Better to use the What3words code pilots.factories.chew or follow the museum’s directions. The entrance is on Hayes Way just past a Lidl store.

By car you come via the M5 at junctions 16 or 17. From the city center you drive north along Gloucester Road. Parking is free, and the museum asks for donations at two stations in the parking lot. Bristol’s clean air zone does not affect the site. A few disabled parking spaces are close to the entrance.

By bus and train, the mainline station Bristol Parkway is the best starting point, about 3.4 kilometers from the museum. According to the museum, these lines run:

• Y6 from Bristol Parkway toward Cribbs Causeway to High Leaze Road, hourly
• Metrobus M4 from the city center toward Cribbs Causeway to Brabazon Park
• 75 from the city center toward Cribbs Causeway to Gipsy Patch Lane
• WESTlink, an on-demand bus with a virtual stop right in front of the entrance, bookable up to 24 hours in advance

On the former airfield, Network Rail is also building the new Bristol Brabazon station on the Henbury line, which will thus get regular passenger service again. Network Rail named fall 2026 as the completion date; whether it is already in service at the time of your visit is best checked shortly beforehand. There are bike racks on the site. General planning tips are in the article Getting to the spot.

On site: café, shop and accessibility

At the Flightline Kitchen + Bar café you get meals, snacks and drinks; according to the museum it opens daily from 9:30 a.m. and is accessible without a ticket. The shop can be entered freely during opening hours. Companions of visitors with disabilities get free admission but must report directly at the ticket desk. Assistance dogs are welcome, other pets are not. Baby changing rooms are in the exhibition hangar and in the Concorde hangar.

Combining Filton with other spots

Because nothing flies at Filton anymore, the visit complements live traffic well. Bristol Airport lies southwest of the city and is mainly a base for European and leisure traffic, including from easyJet. You can see weather, wind and runway direction in use at the airport in advance in Planetrack. That way an afternoon at the fence fits well with a morning at the museum.

For a Concorde tour through England, continue to IWM Duxford with the pre-production aircraft G-AXDN and to the Brooklands Museum in Surrey. In the southwest lies the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton, which also has a British Concorde and shows naval aviation in great breadth. To the north, the RAF Museum Cosford with many British military and civil aircraft is worth a visit.

If you prefer to see current military jets in action, plan a side trip to the Mach Loop in Wales. And if your trip falls in summer: the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford takes place not far from Bristol – incidentally, it was at Fairford that the Concorde prototype 002 landed in 1969 after its first flight from Filton.

Conclusion

Aerospace Bristol is not a classic spotting spot with an approach path and a fence – and that is exactly why the visit is worth it. You stand on the site where aircraft were built for over a hundred years, and walk through the cabin of the Concorde that flew last. Around it, the Bristol Fighter, Sycamore, Britannia nose and Olympus engine tell the story of an entire industrial site.

The limits are clear: there are no aircraft movements, the variety of types is smaller than in the big national museums, and in the halls you struggle with little space and artificial light. If you plan for that, bring a fast wide-angle lens and combine the visit with Bristol Airport or a museum circuit, you get one of the most emotional aviation appointments in England.