After four pretty long, hot, tiring days it was quite nice to have a relaxed start to our final day in France. With two days of stonking weather and all the shots we'd hoped for in the bag, and an 1850 Channel Tunnel crossing booked, there seemed little point in heading back to La Ferte-Alais for a third day, particularly since the flying didn't start until 1330 and the journey time to Calais from the show was in excess of three hours. So instead we headed into Paris and, more specifically, to Le Bourget and the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace.
With the doors only opening at 1000 and our hotel a mere 40 minutes away, it really was leisurely!
Once again, as we got within a mile or so of the museum, TomTom and the local road signs were at odds with one another, and the former was turned off. Shortly after, the museum's exhibition halls appeared on our left hand side, and then, that most iconic of sights; the three pole-mounted CM-170R Magisters in dramatic pose and sporting the colours of the Patrouille de France.
Upon entering the foyer and having joined the queue of people waiting to get in, a lady from the museum spoke to us and tried to explain that entry was free but if we wanted to go inside the Concorde, Jumbo, Dakota and Super Frelon, a fee was payable (7 Euros for an adult and five for a child). Something was lost in translation somewhere along the line though and we ended up paying anyway, which, to be honest, I don't think any of us begrudged as the collection was very good indeed.
Tickets in hand and armed with the knowledge that all of the exhibits' information boards were in French, we turned right and headed into the 'Debuts de l'Aviation' hall, which focuses on the pioneering aviators, without whom we'd probably all still be rooted to terra firma today.
Next-door we move into the 'Les As de 14-18', a permanent interactive exhibition dedicated to the Great War. Six distinct periods of time are plotted out and demonstrate the development of, and changes to, the role of aviation in those few short, but crucially important, years.
One thing that immediately struck us was the excellent use of elevated walkways and multi-level displays to increase accessibility to the numerous exhibits on show.
The Caudron G3, Farman XI and balloons and kites on display were all primarily used for reconnaissance, but it wasn't long before aircraft were being used in a much more offensive manner, thanks in no small part to the invaluable work of Roland Garros who achieved the first ever shoot-down of an aircraft using a gun that fired through the propeller - something he'd been working on for the previous four months. It's claimed that, following the downing of his aircraft behind enemy lines, Fokker engineers examined his work and ultimately produced the improved interrupter gear system which led to the balance of power shifting heavily in favour of the Germans.
Enter the Nieuport XI "Bébé", whose performance in every regard outclassed its primary rival, the Fokker Eindecker, to such a degree during the Battle of Verdun (February 1916) that it prompted a radical change in German tactics.
The Spad VII on display, named "Vieux Charles" is the original aircraft flown by French ace, Georges Guynemer, who amassed 53 aerial victories!
Following defeat at Chemin des Dames a shift towards naval aviation existed, with balloons, airships and seaplanes joining inventories to bolster defences and shore up shipping blockades. Amongst other items on display is the rear-gondola of a bisected Zeppelin LZ 113.
Aviation's involvement on the battlefield was taken to a whole new level in 1918 with whole squadrons of aircraft being launched to stop German attacks, and representing that phase of the war are examples of Breguet XIV, Spad XIII, Fokker DVII and Pfalz aircraft. All of the aircraft on display in the Aces 14-18 section are said to be originals, which makes the collection all the more impressive.
The next room on our journey housed, without doubt, the most jaw-dropping collection of models I've ever seen. Contained within a number of very large display cases were more than 1000 aircraft, helicopter and balloon models, some dating back more than 150 years. The centrepiece of which was an incredible 1/100th scale model of the US aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, complete with a full deck complement of aircraft - all wearing unique markings and tail numbers. Just incredible levels of detail!
By now we were getting rather peckish, having elected to skip breakfast in favour of getting something at the museum. As we stepped outside into the gin-clear skies and sweltering temperatures we noted the café immediately to our right was open, but alas, no food was being served until 1200…
So, with time to kill, we decided to shoot around the external exhibits and take advantage of the glorious conditions, just in case any cloud did start to bubble up.
Dominating the scene was F-BPVJ, an ex-Air France Boeing 747-128, that first flew October 26th 1972 and entered service with the company in March of the following year. After a period of lease to defunct Belgian carrier Sabena, Victor Juliet flew her last commercial flight on February 10th 2000 have recorded 97,271 flight hours. She arrived at Le Bourget shortly afterwards and, following extensive renovations, she was opened up to visitors in June 2003.
Today she's one of the four aircraft that visitors are able to gain access to for the aforementioned small fee, and it really does provide an interesting behind-the-scenes insight into the aircraft. The upper deck is accessible, though a sheet of Perspex prevents access to the flight-deck, while downstairs a video screen tells the story of the type. Towards the rear, areas of flooring and seat fabric have been removed to give a better appreciation of the engineering involved, while at the very back a whole section of floor has been cutaway with steps running down into the cargo hold where a car and some animal cages that are 'in transit' can be seen. It's all been very nicely done.
Military aircraft displayed externally included ex-Armee de l'Air DC-8, ex-Aeronavale Etendard IVM, P-2V-7 Neptune, Nord 262 and Atlantic, ex-Luftwaffe F-104G, MiG-23ML (displayed in Russian markings) and Hansa Jet, ex-USAF "Wild Weasel" F-105G, ex-Czech AF MiG-21F-13, ex-Swiss AF Hunter F.58 and ex-Swedish AF Draken.
Additional civilian exhibits include a Caravelle in Air Provence colours, a Securite Civile CL-215 'Pelican' water-bomber and, perhaps most interestingly, an Air Inter-schemed Dassault Mercure 100, one of only 12 that were built. Designed to take on the Boeing 737, the Mercure was done no favours by the weak dollar and the oil crisis of the 1970s, but even so, the main problem airlines had with it was its relatively short-range - just 1700 km with a full payload. The last one was retired on April 29th 1995.
Full-scale mock-ups of the European Space Agency rockets Ariane 1 and Ariane 5 completed the picture as we saw it, although looking at the museum website, it seems that many of the collection's aircraft are not currently on display, with SAAB Viggen, Tunnan, Lansen and Safir all listed but not noted by us. Conversely, much of what we did see doesn't appear on the website list!
The storage area at Dugny was very obvious in the distance on the far side of the airfield, but to my knowledge it does not appear to be accessible on a regular day; a real shame as there seemed to be some real gems over that side….
Back inside and a right turn saw us entering the 'Espace' exhibition, a very comprehensive collection of space related artefacts, from rockets to satellites and space suits to space food, almost everything you could imagine was covered, though sadly what most of it was remains a mystery to me even now. (Again the website seems massively out of date/incomplete)
Pressing ever onwards, our next port of call was the 'L'Entre deux Guerres' hall - the interwar period - featuring lots of gliders, tugs and some of the first civilian passenger aircraft.
The most prominent of these is the bright yellow "Oiseau Canari", or Canary Bird, the Bernard 191GR that Jean Assolant, Rene Lefevre & Armand Lotti completed the first French aerial crossing of the North Atlantic in on June 13th 1929. Taking 29 hours and 52 minutes, the triumvirate was successful, despite later discovering they had a stowaway onboard!
Among the other aircraft present in this section were examples of a Breguet XIX TF Super Bidon, Bleriot-Spad 54 Herbemont, Morane Saulnier 317, the bizarre looking Croses LC-6 Criquet and Avions Henri Mignet HM 14 "Flying Flea", Caudron C.272/5 Luciole and Potez 53. Needless to say these were, almost without exception, new types to me!
With the clock having finally ticked around to 1200, we took the opportunity to break off from our tour to take in some sustenance! It came in the shape of a ham, salad and pesto panini, hand-made on the premises, and well worth the wait!
Re-energised, our next stop was the 'Voilure Tournante' - the Rotarycraft exhibition. A Gendarmerie SA319B Alouette III welcomes you inside, and beyond which lay two weird and wonderful looking autogyros and the Breguet 111 Gyroplane - an experimental helicopter built in 1946. Hanging from the ceiling along with the Cierva Autogyro were a Focke Achgelis Fa330A-1 - a gyrocopter that was towed behind U-boats to provide 'over the horizon' surveillance - a Sud-Est SE-3101, the first helicopter to fly in France after WWII, and a Hiller 360.
The next two exhibition halls were the ones that I was most interested in seeing, 'Les avions de chasse de l'Armee de l'Air' and 'Prototypes Fracais' - Aircraft of the French Air Force and French Prototypes.
The layout in the former worked particularly well, despite the lack of multi-levelled access on three of the four sides. Aircraft on display include examples of Fiat F-86K - a license built version of North American Aviation's classic - Dassault Mystere IVA, its big brother, the Super Mystere B2 - in a very nice camo scheme - the prototype Mirage 2000, a Sud-Est SE-535 Mistral - a license built version of the de Havilland Vampire - and North American F-100D Super Sabre, T-6G Texan and F-84F Thunderstreak; types which have all served with the French Air Force. There's also a fascinating full-size Perspex-framed Mirage F1.
One other aircraft displayed on the floor is the Dassault 450 Ouragan (Hurricane), an aircraft that played a vital role in the resurgence of the French aviation industry post-WWII. The Ouragan was a big success domestically and was also exported to India, Israel and El Salvador as a fighter-bomber aircraft.
Moving into the walkway between the two hangars is where the weird and wonderful really begins! There's the only ever Hurel-Dubois HD.10 to be built - an aircraft used to investigate high-aspect ratio wings - the prototype Sud-Aviation SE-3210 Super Frelon, the sole Payen Pa 49 Katy - an experimental delta winged jet - the Sud-Ouest SO-6000 Triton and the Leduc 010.
Almost unique examples of some of the less well known (and successful) Dassault Mirage derivatives are on display too; the IIIV (3V) - a vertical take-off and landing variant of the Mirage III that featured eight vertical lift jets that straddled the main engine, and the gigantic swing-winged G8 - coming in some 3.5m longer than the F1! Without French government funding, neither variant entered production.
Falling into the unlikely category of wackier still was the SNCASO SO.9000 Trident, an aircraft whose primary source of power was a SEPR rocket engine, augmented by wingtip mounted turbojets. More than 100 test flights were completed with speeds of Mach 1.8 recorded and at altitudes of up to 65,000ft. Despite its successes the project was cancelled following announcements of British manned-fighter cuts.
The Nord 1500 Griffon, does, in my humble opinion, bear more than a passing resemblance to Eurofighter Typhoon. Achieving first flight in 1957, the Griffon used a combination turbo and ramjet powerplant to exceed Mach 2. It lacked controllability in mid-speeds however and was thus rejected in favour of the Mirage III.
Without doubt the prize for the most insane looking jet ever has to go to the Leduc 022, an aircraft which I can only liken to a flying syringe! Designed with the intention of achieving Mach 2+, it was unsuccessful and struggled to break the sound barrier at all. With the pilot positioned prone in the glass section of the nose, I'm sure many current and prospective Armee de l'Air pilots of the time were delighted to hear of its demise. I can only begin to imagine what it must have been like to fly!
Passing outside to get to 'Hall Concorde' the temperatures were still rising, and inside the hangar it was pretty warm and the air very still. Lurking in the dark were two Concordes, F-WTSS and F-BTSD, and, somewhat surprisingly, a lovely Mirage IVA.
F-WTSS was the first prototype and first flew from Toulouse on March 2nd 1969, piloted by Andre Turcat. After 397 flights, totalling 812 hours - 255 of which were spent supersonic - Sierra Sierra was retired to the museum on 19th October 1973.
Sierra Delta on the other hand actually made her first flight exactly one calendar year before I was born, on June 26th 1978. She joined the Air France fleet on 18th September of that year, becoming their sixth aircraft in the process. Delivered to Le Bourget on the opening day of the 2003 Paris Airshow, Sierra Delta had amassed some 11788 flight hours, during her 3787 flights, and still holds the records for the fastest round-the-world commercial flight tours, both eastbound and westbound.
The final hangar, 'Hall des Avions de la seconde Guerre Mondiale', Aircraft of WWII, was unquestionably the least open of the whole collection, with a distinct lack of light, no elevated walkways and several aircraft jammed into corners making them unappealing for photography. It was a real shame because there were some very nice items on display, including examples of the Polikarpov I-153 Chaika, B-26 Marauder, Spitfire Mk XVI, P-47D Thunderbolt - in French markings, a Focke-Wulf Fw-190A-8 - damaged in 1944 and in storage at an underground repair facility in France when the war ended, rebuilt (and flown by the Armee de l'Air) post-war in France using parts from a plant that had been producing aircraft for the Luftwaffe - and a nicely preserved C-47A Skytrain, going by the name of Buzz Buggy.
The star though is the Yak-3 - an original airframe and one of 37 handed over to the French Air Force at the end of WWII as a thank you from the Soviet Union for the efforts of the Normandie-Niemen squadron on the Eastern Front. Indeed, between March 22nd 1943 and May 9th 1945, Normandie-Niemen destroyed no fewer than 273 enemy aircraft on behalf of Soviet forces. The museum's example is the sole survivor.
And so that was that! The public display halls at Le Bourget are just fantastic. The layout, in the main, is superb and the elevated walkways give the photographer every chance.
Given free entry it's very difficult to be critical of what was on offer - which in itself was VERY good - but, looking across to the farside and having looked at the website since, I dread to think just what was lurking over there, out of public reach…
One thing that is clear is that the covered space available to the museum is being utilised to the full and, as such, anything else placed on display would have to be left outside and exposed to the elements. Looking at pictures on airliners.net and other similar image databases, it does appear that a significant number of exhibits do get rotated through the main museum and storage areas, and I guess, given the space restrictions, that's the best compromise that could be achieved.
GAR wants to interact with its readers so if you have a question for the author or a comment to make on this feature, please click on the button below. The best comments will appear right here on GAR.2010-06-08 - philip globe
Excellent commentary on one of the best museums in the world in my opinion. There cannot be many museums that have the full range of aviation content covering the last 110 years.
For info Dugny is open to the public 18/19 Sept and tends to be open on or about the same weekend each year.
Rgds,
Phil
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