The 2023 edition of the Pardubice Aviation Fair took place on May 27 and 28. The show is a primarily civilian show with a strong focus on vintage aircraft.
This year’s show was to the usual high standard and the weather was sunny all day. Photography was a challenge due to the sun travelling parallel to the runway and being overhead all day. It caused a lot of photos to be backlit and heat distortion played havoc with distance shots on the ground.
However, I managed a good set of shots that gives a taste of the event:
A general view of the Kunovice Air Museum collection during my visit in April of 2023.
Long term readers of Pickled Wings will know of my existing article about the Kunovice Air Museum in the south-east of the Czech Republic.
This museum is a special place to me as I’ve seen it change so much since my first visit there in 2008, and all the changes have been for the better. The museum business is not an easy one, but the Kunovice Air Museum is a great example of how a struggling museum can become a flourishing one when networking opportunities for partnerships with companies and other museums as well as government support at both national and local levels are made available.
I try to visit the museum at least once a year and post an update of the recent developments there. I was not able to visit during to 2022 season, but here are some notes from a recent visit I paid at the end of April, 2023:
The museum’s restored Z-37, returned to public display in 2022.
When I saw this aircraft on my first visit to the museum in 2008, it was in such a sad state that I didn’t even take a picture of it.
The museum took the aircraft off of public view for several years to perform an extensive restoration of it.
Beyond the tremendous talent pool among museum volunteers, the restoration was made possible by the Kunovice based Let aircraft company donating hangar space for the work to be done in as well as funding from the Czech Ministry of Culture.
The completely restored aircraft was rolled out and put back on public display in summer of 2022. The aircraft was restored precisiely to the markings it wore when it operated on the civil register of the former East Germany. This is very fitting as the aircraft spent the bulk of its flying career in that country.
The MiG-23 fighter, on loan to the museum from LOM Praha.
Meet the New MiG!
LOM Praha is a Prague base aviation services company that the museum has a partnership with.
In autumn of 2021, the company loaned a former Czech air force MiG-23 fighter to the museum wit hthe intent for the aircraft to be displayed at the museum and eventually restored.
From late 2021 to early 2022, museum staff went to Prague to disassemble the aircraft, which had been sitting for many years in front of the LOM Praha office, and transport it by road to Kunovice.
Following reassembly, the aircraft was placed on public display at the museum in summer of 2022.
The Education Interactive Zone for Children.
Something for the Kids
The loan of the MiG-23 was not the only recent museum project that involved LOM Praha. The company was one of several contributors to the creation of the Education Interactive Zone for Children that the museum introduced at the start of the 2022 season.
The area takes up a small area and has three friendly looking aircraft for kids to explore and play around on.
However, it’s not simply a playground. One of the aircraft has a functioning control stick and foot pedals, so kids can see the control surfaces on the wings and tail responding to how they move the controls.
There is also a presentation board with examples of common materials that aircraft parts are made from, so a tactile experience is available without touching the museum’s display aircraft.
There is education as well as fun in this part of the museum.
As with the Z-37 restoration, the Ministry of Culture also provided some funding for this project.
An engine pod, complete with the thrust reverser visible at the back end.
The “Nagano Express” Revisited
The centrepiece of the museum’s collection is, without a doubt, their Tupolev Tu-154 airliner, “Nagano Express”.
In the 2021-2022 time period, engines were installed in the aircraft’s two outboard engine pods. The engines were provided and installed by the Slovak Technical Museum.
These new engines may not be the most immediately visible of the new developments at the museum, but they give a lot in the way of completeness to the Tu-154 when you get up close to it.
Now, when you look towards the tail of the aircraft from the top of the airstairs, there is a real engine turbine face looking back at you.
When you walk around the back of the aircraft, you can know see the thrust reverser machanisms at the back of the engine pods. The thrust reversers were very distinctive and visible features on the functioning aircraft.
That’s Just a Taste
What I’ve written in this update touches on the most visible of new developments at the Kunovice Air Museum in the 2021-2022 timeframe.
If you want to know more about what you can expect to see at the museum, please visit my existing article about it via the link in the start of this article. You can find links to the museum website and Facebook page there for more information.
The “golden hour” is that small window of time at sunrise or sunset, where the sun is at just the right spot to cast a warm golden hue over everything it touches. It adds an ethereal feel that is much sought after by many photographers.
Today, it was my good fortune to be taking my afternoon walk to Brno’s Medlánky airport as the “golden hour” struck while this Socata Rallye was heading out.
Have a good weekend everyone, I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
September 17 and 18 saw the 2022 edition of the annual NATO Days show in Ostrava, Czech Republic take place.
I attended on the 17th. Despite the weather being overcast most of the day and making photography of flying displays tricky, it was an enjoyable show as always.
The 2022 show marked the first appearance of Brazilian and Latvian participants at the NATO Days event. It also marked the first time a Dassault Rafale fighter was in the static park, previous editions of the show have had Rafales in the flying program, and it was quite interesting to get up close to France’s most modern fighter.
On a somewhat bittersweet note, the 2022 edition of the show was the last public airshow appearance of the Czech air force Mil Mi-35 “Hind” helicopter. An iconic aircraft from the height of the Cold War to the present, the “Hind” is scheduled to be retired from Czech air force service in late 2022 or early 2023.
At that, here’s a selection of what was on view at the show in 2022:
September 10 and 11 of 2022 saw the annual Oldtimers Weekend event take place at the Medlánky airport in the northern reaches of Brno,Czech Republic.
The event was a mix of some familiar gliders, both contemporary and vintage that belong to the Medlánky Aeroklub, and visiting aircraft. The 2022 edition of the event had a surprize in the form of a Czech air force Mil Mi-35 helicopter on September 10, this was a very unusul aircraft to have on hand as the event is typically a fully civillian affair.
The weather forecast for the weekend was not particulary good, but the event went on anyway. I took these pictures during a practice for the event on September 9 and a window of reasonably clear weather on the afternoon of September 10.
General view of the musem’s main floor from the upper level.
Air Museum in a Car Town
Located approximately 50 Kilometres north-east of Prague, Mladá Boleslav is a very important city to the Czech Republic in both historical and contemporary contexts. First and foremost, it is home to the legendary Škoda automobile company and their main factory. It was also home to Laurin & Klement, the ancestral company to today’s Škoda Auto; the collective history of the two car makers stretches back to 1895, making Škoda one of the oldest still operating automobile manufacturers in the world.
The city is also the home of the Methodius Vlach Air Museum (Letecké Muzeum Metoděje Vlacha).
Why would a city with such a deep connection to automotive history have a dedicated aircraft museum? For the answer to that question, we need to spend a bit of time getting to know the namesake of the museum, Methodius Vlach (1887-1957):
The museum’s full scale, flyable replica of Methodius Vlach’s 1912 aircraft.
Methodius Who?
Methodius Vlach was an industrial designer by training who worked for several companies in his professional life. In 1909, he arrived in Mladá Boleslav and took up work with Laurin & Klement; between 1909 and the outbreak of the First World War, Vlach experimented with aircraft design.
Vlach’s is certainly not a household name in aviation history. While he had no formal training in aviation and he did not spend long experimenting with aircraft, he can certainly be considered a pioneer in the rich fabric of Czech aviation history as he designed and built the first fully Czech aircraft between 1910 and 1912.
Designed by a Czech, built on Czech soil from fully Czech sourced materials that included an engine from Laurin & Klement; Vlach took the aircraft into the air for the first time on November 8 of 1912. Throughout the day, he made six short flights and managed to reach a speed of 100 kph. On the sixth flight, the aircraft crashed and Vlach sustained minor injuries.
While it was Vlach’s own inexperience in piloting that caused the crash, he had made it clear that Czechs could create their own aircraft.
Flyable replica WWI fighters in the collection.
A Dynamic Collection
The collection at this museum comprises around 28 to 30 aircraft that represent eras from the dawn of powered flight up to the present.
Made up of both replica and original aircraft, the bulk of the museum’s collection is flyable. During the summer months, the museum displays some of its aircraft at airshows in both the Czech Republic and Germany. It also hosts air display days of its own from time to time.
The museum includes a very spacious caffeteria with an outdoor terrace that faces directly onto a runway, so you can enjoy drinks and snacks while taking in whatever aircraft movements might be happening at the time. The museum building also includes a viewing tower and some grandstand style seats to watch airport action from as well.
With its angular exterior, which the architect said was inspired by the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter, the museum building is an exhibit in its own right. Completed in 2014, the building has won awards for its design.
View of the museum building.
Building on what is already something of an immersive aviation experience for the visitor, it is also possible to purchase time on a gyroscopic simulator as well as flight simulators or a parachute simulator. According to information on the museum’s website, sightseeing flights can also be arranged.
It should be kept in mind that I visited the museum on a basic ticket and all my interactions with museum staff were in Czech. If you wish to try any of the activities listed in the above paragraph when you visit the museum, I’m not sure what sort of linguistic flexibility you could expect there and it would be best to contact them ahead of your planned visit to see what’s possible if you don’t speak Czech.
An original Polikarpov PO-2 from 1937.
Planes Renowned and Obscure
The selection of aircraft at the museum includes both world famous and well known types as well as some quite obscure types not typically known about to those without a deep knowledge of Czech aviation history.
On the famous end of things, the museum’s most valuable aircraft is a flyable Polikarpov PO-2 biplane of original Soviet production that was built in 1937. At the time of writing this article, July of 2022, less than ten examples of the type are known to be flyable worldwide.
Other famous machines in the collection include a Bucker Jungmann biplane and a Zlín Z-50 aerobatics aircraft.
The Verner W-01 Brouček.
On the more obscure end of things, you can view the Verner W-01 Brouček. First flown in 1970, it was the first modern Czech amateur aircraft design.
You can also find a Zlín Z-50M, a rare version of the Z-50 aerobatics aircraft that was fitted with an inline engine. Only 5 of the Z-50M version were ever made.
Another aircraft of more localised significance in the collection is a flyable replica of a 1909 Grade monoplane. In 1911, Božena Láglerová earned her pilot’s license in this type of aircraft. In doing so, she became not only the first Czech female pilot, but the first female pilot in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The museum’s second level.
Getting Above Things
The upper floor of the museum building is a mezzanine that gives one a nice look down at the aircraft on the ground floor and brings you nose to nose with aircraft that are displayed in hanging fashion.
The upper floor is also taken up by a number of display cases filled with a variety of aviation artifacts like flight instruments, scale models and uniforms.
The museum also has a small gallery of aviation art that’s tucked away out of immediate sight, but is very worth making a point to find and take in.
Suggested walking path between the Mladá Boleslav bus station and the museum.
Paying a Visit and Learning More
Buses run regularly between Prague and Mladá Boleslav. If you’re travelling by bus from Prague, you will need to take a bus from the Černý Most bus station which is the eastern terminus of the B (yellow) line of the Prague metro system.
The average travel time between the cities is 45 minutes to an hour depending on the bus you take.
Mladá Boleslav does have a public transport system and there is a line that stops at the aviation museum, but my experience in using it to get to the museum was confusing as the route had many turns and the stop announcement system on the bus wasn’t working well. Additionally, the line that goes to the museum only runs once an hour.
I took the chance on walking back to the centre of town and found it quite easy in both navigation and physical effort. If I paid another visit and the weather was nice, I’d probably just walk from the station to the museum.
As the museum also has a good sized parking lot and bicycle racks, you can come by car or bicycle if you like.
To find out more specific information about the aviation museum, its operating hours and ticket prices, you can visit its official website. While the website is only in Czech at the moment, it responds reasonably well to online translators.
On a final note, Mladá Boleslav has enough on offer to keep a visitor busy for the bulk of a day. Beyond the aviation museum, there is also the historic centre of town and the Škoda Museum. If you’re going there from Prague, go early and make a day trip of it.
On July 2 of 2022, I travelled to Břeclav, in the south east of the Czech Republic, to visit the open day at the town’s airport. It was my first time at the event and I wasn’t sure what to expect.
It was a solidy civilian affair with a friendly atmosphere at a grass strip airfield nestled in the Czech wine country.
Overall, it was something between a fly-in event and an aerobatics show.
A very enjoyable event and one I’d definitely visit again.
Pickled Wings 