Warbird Information Exchange

Dream Museum? Easy. The Berlin Museum, 1942.

Kevin

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Kevin McCartney

Is that the one the forgot to put a roof on?

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Aviation Illustration Website
http://shepartstudio.com/illustration/

The Berlin Museum was arguably the greatest air museum of all time. Certainly the greatest air museum of its day. This had the Dornier D.X, many early aircraft and the best collection of WWI aircraft ever assembled in one place. The WWI collection included a number of personal mounts of famous aces, including Richtofen (both a Red-Baron flown Albatros D.IV and Fokker Dr.I, if memory serves). Also many great between the war aircraft, experiments (incl. the Heinkle 178 first jet), and early WWII birds.

In 1943 most of the museum aircraft were put in storage for safekeeping, with those too big - such as the Do.X left on site and destroyed by bombing circa 1944. One group that was stored a collection of railroad cars in then-eastern Germany was found and kept hidden by the Polish and is now in the air museum in Krakow (the only major air museum in the world that I have left to visit). This collection included an Antoinette, amongst others; for most of the WWI survivors, some of the fuselages were found in this collection in Poland but the wings were stored elsewhere and was lost along with everything else. If it had survived intact with various things added from WWII and more recent history it would likely be the greatest air museum in the world today.

It is the ultimate dream museum - not just a personal want list but a museum that actually existed.

Kevin

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Kevin McCartney

Old Iron makes a good point. If I could go back in time to save aircraft from museum fires think of the types that once existed. I can think of San Diego and Paris plus that place in the Midwest that had a Henschel 129. Not a fire but a previously existing collection, the old USAF collection at Chicago that got broken up and moved around during the Korean war.

From a personal stand point I would like to build a relatively small museum with definite theme. Fighter aces from New Hampshire (My home state) would have to include the P-51B and D, Spitfire, Hellcat, Lightning and Sabre at least. Grumman fighters from FF-1 to F-14 would be cool, as would Seversky/Republic from p-35 to F-105 though the latter two would probably have a better chance as a display at Pensacola or Wright Patterson.

Anyway I have already seen my dream museum. The Champlin Fighter Museum.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

ok you guys have the old fantasy juices flowing now. first off the old picton airforce base in ontario canada still has all its ww2 hangars in tact along with barracks that would be a good start for a museum also a beautiful area.next would be the aircraft.

the chinese P61 as i,m sure that know one else is going to part with theres
next would be a c119 for picking upengines and airframes and sundrie parts
an OV-10 bronco just a cool plane and before you think there is a trend here
a grumman Albatross decked out as a flying winabago so you could get away
a grumman bearcat
a seafury
and just to go back to the beginning a fully restored with all the bugs worked out Pond racer

nice to dream isn,t it
by the way guys this site is the best thing i have ever found on the internet
cheers