Museum invite wings its way to the States

Published on Friday 3 July 2009 10:00

RESIDENTS of a small town in Long Island, in the United States, have received an invitation to visit the National Museum of Flight, near Edinburgh, as the attraction commemorates the 90th anniversary of an epic 6,000-mile Scottish transatlantic airship crossing.

On 2 July 1919, the giant R34 airship departed from the museum's East Fortune home, en route for Mineola on the first ever return flight across the Atlantic and the first east-west crossing by air.

To mark the anniversary of this epic flight, the National Museum of Flight has written to the Mayor of Mineola issuing an invitation to any of the town's 19,000 residents to enjoy free entry to the East Lothian attraction if they visit Scotland.

The story of the R34 is told as part of the National Museum of Flight's Fortunes of War exhibition, which opened earlier this year.