Tag Archives: museum

June 6, 2015 · 8:00 am

Musée Espace Air Passion (Angers)

In the last post I described the Fly Out to Les Châteaux de la Loire that we made the last weekend. In that post I mentioned that we visited the museum Espace Air Passion in Angers airport. This post will be dedicated to that beautiful museum.

This museum is owned and run by an association, the “Groupement pour la Préservation du Patrimoine Aéronautique” (GPPA), created back in 1981 by a group of friends around the project of restoring an old aircraft (a jewel) from René Gasnier, a local pioneer of French aviation who flew in 1908 along 1km in an airplane built by himself. That airplane is the first one you get to see in the museum:

Rene Gasnier III, built in 1908, restored in 1988.

Rene Gasnier III, built in 1908, restored in 1988.

René Gasnier built his first airplanes between 1907 and 1908. This model, the III was built in 1908. As you can see it was made of wood and cloth. It mounted an Antoinette engine with 8 cylinders in V, with a power of 48hp, wingspan of 10m, less than 500kg at take off. It took the enthusiasts of GPPA over 1000 hours to restore it.

This airplane is surely not the only unique piece of the museum. Take a look at the following two airplanes.

The Gérin “Varivol”, built in 1938 (by the Compagnie Française d’Aviation), was based in the concept of using moving wings which extended themselves increasing the wingspan at the time of take-off when more lift was needed and reducing the wingspan to decrease drag at cruise. A prototype was successfully tested in the wind tunnel of Chalais-Meudon in 1946, however the actual airplane seems to never have flown. Had it flown, it was to have a cruise speed of ~455km/h while only 92km/h for landing speed. The wings were to be extended/retracted 2.75m per side out of a total retracted wingspan of 8.10m.

Alerion Riout 102 T.

Alerion Riout 102 T.

Built in 1937 by René Riout (at the workshop of Louis Breguet) with duralium, the 102 T explored the concept of flying by batting its wings (4, two at each side of the fuselage). During its test in 1938 when the pilot increased the engine regime up to around 4500rpm, after a few seconds, the observers saw torsion vibrations in the tip of one the wings before it broke, closely followed by the other 3 wings. It was then dismounted and forgotten till 2005 when the restoration at GPPA started.

This reminded me of a quote attributed to Igor Sikorsky that goes like:

Our engineers have determined that aerodynamically, the hummingbird shouldn’t be able to fly, but the hummingbird doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.

Another oddity of the museum is one of the only two prototypes (1) ever built of the Moynet Jupiter (designed by André Moynet) which had the rare configuration of two push and pull engines, one in the front and one in the back of the fuselage. It was never sold to any customer, but it flew for the first time on December 17, 1963 (60 years after that glorious day in Kitty Hawk).

Moynet Jupiter.

Moynet Jupiter.

The museum has these other two sailplanes which have been declared patrimoine de l’aviation française due to the records they collected in their high time, the Caudron 800 Épervier and the Avia 40P:

We also enjoyed the visit to the workshops where they restore the fuselages and the wings. Take a look at the pictures and notice the wood and the cloth. Forget about those pictures the next time you get onboard a general aviation airplane.

We were given a guided tour by two members of the association, their explanations, anecdotes, connection with French famous pilots (including former Airbus’ test pilots) were invaluable. On the other hand, the audience couldn’t have been more responsive. Take a look at the pictures above: scores of years of aerospace engineering experience (flight testing, training), thousands of flying hours as pilots, real aviation geeks at its best.

The museum also has playing area for children, a MH-1521 Broussard for children (an adults) to get on and play, and some other beautiful aircraft including a Caudron PC431 Rafale, a Morane Saulnier 505, a Piper L4H Grasshoper, or the car Marcel Leyat Helica… see them below:

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(1) The other prototype is at  the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, at Le Bourget.

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August 24, 2013 · 1:10 am

Pima Air and Space Museum

Pima is a county in the South of Arizona, where the city of Tucson is located. Tucson is home of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where the US Air Force’s 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), known as “The Boneyard”, is located. I wrote about the Boneyard in a previous post. In order to visit the Boneyard, you need to visit the Pima Air & Space Museum and that is how I got to know about the museum.

The description of the museum from their website states (the emphasis is mine):

“The Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the largest aviation Museums in the world, and the largest non-government funded aviation Museum in the United States. You’ll see more than 300 aircraft and spacecraft including many of the most historically significant and technically advanced craft ever produced, both from the United States and throughout the world.”

Pimar Air & Space Musem (Tucson, AZ).

Pima Air & Space Museum (Tucson, AZ).

The museum has 6 hangars and one space gallery, plus an impressive exhibit outdoors, which can be visited with a tram or on foot (or both). You can see in the map below the arrangement of the museum:

Pima Air and Space Museum map.

Pima Air and Space Museum map.

Together with the plan the visitor is handed an inventory of the aircraft on exhibit and where are they located (in which hangars):

Pimar Air and Space Museum inventory.

Pima Air and Space Museum inventory.

As you can see from the inventory above, the list of aircraft exhibited at the museum is simply impressive, overwhelming. Add to that, that in this museum you can get as close to the aircraft as you wish.

In the website of the museum you can find brief explanations of each of the aircraft on exhibit (here). This aircraft index can be surfed very handily ordering the aircraft by different criteria. The information about them includes some technical specifications, a brief historical explanation and a picture of the aircraft (I would almost say that it makes up for a visit of the museum). A very good job on the part of the museum curators.

Some of the highlights (in my opinion) of the museum:

Find some pictures I took of some of these aircraft and others in the slide show below:

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The Pima Air & Space Museum has also facilities to restore the aircraft they get and bring them to a decent status to be put on exhibition. Some of the aircraft are on loan from the US Air Force Museum.

Within the museum there are plenty of US armed forces veterans willing to share with you detailed explanations or anecdotes from any of the aircraft. The tram visit of the outdoor exhibit is guided by one of these veterans… no need to say that the experience is fantastic.

It goes without saying it, that I strongly recommend to visit this museum as it is one of the best aerospace museums that I have ever visited. Couple that with the visit to the Boneyard and it is definitely a must for aerospace aficionados.

Finally, some tips to visit the museum:

  • plan your visit as early as possible (doors open at 9am),
  • allow yourself no less than 5 hours to comfortably visit the museum,
  • if the visit is in summertime, bring a bottle of water with you (which can be refilled in any of the many sources inside the museum),
  • plan to have lunch in the museum,
  • book yourself a place both in the tram to visit the outdoor exhibit and in the bus to visit the Boneyard (for this a photo ID will be necessary), as tickets sell out, be there at 9am.

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April 6, 2012 · 8:00 am

Hazard and probabilities

Two weeks ago I visited Geneva for the first time. Among other things we visited a museum out of “our programme”, the History of Science Museum.

The ground floor of the museum had some tools that were in use in the past century in science research (microscopes, telescope, Earth globes…). In the upper floor there was a temporary exhibition about hazard, probability and games (“Les jeux sont faits! hasard et probabilités“). That one was great. Few times I had a better time in a museum than there. To name but a few of the games and tricks it had: rigged dice for the visitor to throw (and contribute to the experiment by noting down results), the game of the three-door game with a prize behind one of them (always change of choice when given the chance!), a small casino roulette (not only I didn’t lose any cash this time but finally I could throw the ball and say “rien ne va plus!”), a russian roulette, etc.

The interactive experiment that I enjoyed the most was one that challenged the visitor to guess the weight of a die. As a reference there were given three weights of 1, 3 and 5 kg to compare the die with (there was no scale). You had to enter your guess in a screen (my guess was 2.5 kg). Right afterwards you got information of previous visitors’ guesses: from 1 to 9.5kg (!), average weight guess of about 2.83kg… no one would tell you the solution. I don’t know how, but I hope I’ll get to know the solution to the quiz, even if it won’t be published until the exhibition finishes (January 2013).

Another feature that I loved of the museum was that in many of its rooms it had small brochures to be taken by the visitor as a complement of the visit. I took many of them to read them afterwards. It happens to me many times that after a couple of hours of slowly walking and reading lots of different interesting things in a museum I simply can’t take anymore of it. With these brochures you can make a lighter visit, knowing that the details you skip while at the museum can be read later on.

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I highly recommend the visit to the museum. The visit will not take much longer than an hour (unless you engage yourself in every single game), it only requires a small diversion from the walk by the lake and by the way the admission is free.

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