Polish Aviation Museum, Krakow

[warbirdcrew]

Hi All,

Thought you might enjoy seeing my pics from my recent trip to the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow, Poland. The museum is very well stocked in terms of rare and unique airplanes and engines. Their WWI collection and pre-WWI collection are very impressive with all the airplanes in almost mint original condition. Unfortunately, the hangars are rather small and poorly lit, and by grouping the airplanes very closely together they are somewhat difficult to photograph. Also, sorry for the quality of the pics, I am not using the top-of-the-line stuff like some of you do, only my little Sony point-and-shoot which is not very good in low light.

Part of the WWI collection. mostly some German stuff and a few Polish and Russian machines, as well as a Sopwith Camel.





This is a Curtiss Hawk that was personally imported to Germany by Hermann Goering himself from the United States. This is the airplane that flew in the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.


Cessna T-50


PZL 26. This was Poland's front-line fighter during the German invasion. As you can see, no match for the Me-109


North American T-6


Tupolev Tu-25 medium bomber


A Spitfire painted to represent the Poles who flew them in the war.


The venerable Yak 18




The native Polish trainer, the PZL Ts-8 Bies


Thought to be the only original Diamler Benz DB 801 still existing, the engine that powered the FW-190


The Polish Air Force donated one example of every variant produced of the MiG 21


Same deal with the MiG 17s. Yes, I realize the airplane in the foreground is not a MiG 17


A sad looking Tweet


Hope you enjoy.

[gary1954]

Thanks for sharing the pics man, regardless of the camera, you got some great stuff.

Last edited by gary1954 on Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

[RickH]

I got nothing but red xs after the L bird !

[Steve Nelson]

I got nothing but red xs after the L bird !

Try hitting "refresh." That brought the rest of them up for me.


Great pics! Especially some of that WWI stuff in original condition. I wonder if the paint on that Curtiss Hawk is original..that would make it quite an historical artifact!

SN

[RickH]

Got them now, whatever you did worked. Nice pics. IIRC the A-37 was sent to the museum from Viet Nam. It was captured by the North when they took over the country.

[gary1954]

I imagine that the "north" has some nice stuff tucked away, several C-47s and boat load of Hueys and Gunships. The 6000 pound Dog Whistle looks kinda neat decked out with Ore-Din-Nince stuff, realizing that these here appear to be drop tanks

[GIJOE290]

Wow, nice photo's!

Thanks for sharing them.

[Dan K]

I think you'll find that the Fw-190's powerplant was typically produced by BMW rather than Daimler Benz.

As far as only one example surviving, try googling "BMW 801".

[warbirdcrew]

Glad you guys like the photos. I will post some more shortly. Dan K, you are right about the engine being produced by BMW. My bad. As far as it being the only one, I am just going off of what they told me. No one there spoke decent English, so maybe something got lost in the translation. The model of the engine is 801D-2 so maybe that is what they were referring to. Steve, as far as I know, the paint on the Hawk is indeed all original. The museum has gone to great lengths to preserve the historical aspects of each airplane. Very few of their airplanes are wearing new paint.

- wc

[B17news]

great photos, thanks again for posting them.

B

[Mike]

Thanks for posting the photos warbirdcrew. That is one of my favourite museums, last resting place for the surviving airframes from the Berlin collection evacuated during WWII, and home to the fabulous PZL P.11c, one of my all-time favourite preserved airframes.

A couple of points - the Hawk was imported by Ernst Udet, not Goering, and the majority of the airframes preserved indoors HAVE been restored and repainted at some point, one notable exception being the Me209 fuselage.

[ArtS]

I'm new to this forum but have been lurking a while. Thank you all for the great site.

I second Mike's comment - this is one of the best museums for WW1 aircraft. Unfortunately most of the airframes no longer have wings as the Berlin collection was stored in several places during the war, with the fuselages and wings stored separately unfortunately, the wings were lost.

Regards,

Art S.

[warbirdcrew]

Hi All, here are some more pictures from the Polish Aviation Museum

Mike, I was just going off of what they told me at the museum. Again, it is possible I misunderstood. The sign in front of the Hawk says that it was imported by Goering but that all the flying on it was done by Udet. ArtS, never knew that was the reason for the missing wings, but the museum is actively searching for wings for its airplanes so if anyone out there knows of any.... I tried taking some pictures of the pre-WWI collection but the room was extremely dark and the only one that came out with any semblance of being something was the Me-209.

without further ado:









Messerchmidt Me-209


Would really hate to be on the receiving end of one of these


MiGs




Sopwith Camel




The Tupolev's condition is a combination of the oleo collapsing and the soft grass


Lastly, I want to say a big thank-you to my host Waldemar Miskurka. Some of you might know him for flying an AN-2 around the world in 1997, as well as the first Polish person to fly around the world. He has about 3000 hours in An-2s flying them all over the world, and arguably knows more about An-2s than anyone on the planet. This is him with the An-2 he flew around the world.

Last edited by warbirdcrew on Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

[mustangdriver]

What a cool museum. It would be cool for them to get all of the Migs indoors. Sweet collection. Thanks for posting the pics.

[Johan]

Like the second pic in your post. That amphib plane is very rare. As far as I know, there's only one left in teh belgian Air musseum in Brussels. Don't know the name or it, only know that the Belgian King used one of these during the first WW to fly to england and back.

Nice to see there's one more preserved.

Johan