Warbird Information Exchange

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“PMURT KCUF”

Great pictures, thanks Mark!

A few questions:

1) Is this a private museum or state museum?

2) It's interesting that even in Russia, the swastika is apparently banned on W.W.II German aircraft. Is that compulsory (law) or just accepted culture because of the intense hatred from Russians towards Nazi's?

3) Does anyone know the history of that A-20? Is that the one that was restored at Aero Trader a few years ago (ex-Tallichet, ex- Air Heritage, etc.)

4) Are any of their aircraft airworthy?

Your welcome. I posted a link at the top of the thread of the museum.

A few of them used to fly, such as the Polikarpov fighters and the Flug Werk Fw 190 (former D-FWJS), but since joining the museum I think they're all static-only now. Of course the majority of the rest are static-only restorations. The A-20 is the ex-Tallichet example (44-0020) that was restored to static by Aero Trader, and the B-25 was also built-up purely for static display by Aero Trader, using various components/sub-assemblies from their B-25 stock. The P-39 is the static example that had been restored by Classic Jets in Australia. The Spitfire Mk.V was built-up as a purely static display example by Airframe Assemblies in the UK. The P-51D was built-up as a purely static display example by Pacific Fighters. Not seen in those photos, there is also a static P-40 that was put together for that museum by California Aerofab, as well as a static PBY Catalina (BuNo.46457) restored for that museum by American Aero Services (displayed in a separate indoor hall).

Just to be clear, because this is so often misunderstood, the swastika is allowed to be displayed in Germany in an educational context. The law prohibiting its use includes the following caveat:

(Source: German Law Archive)

So uses like this...

(Source: Source)

...are completely legal. As to what constitutes an "educational" use (e.g. Does Hangar 10 flying their Bf 109 count?) is another question.

As for Russia? According to Article 20.3 of their administrative offenses law "public display of Nazi...symbols...is prohibited by federal law", but there is a footnote that "[t]he provisions of this article shall not apply to cases of the use of Nazi...symbols of extremist organizations that form a negative attitude toward the ideology of Nazism and extremism and that do not contain signs of propaganda or justification of Nazi and extremist ideology." However, this was not the case up until 2020, when extreme enforcement of the law caused enough problems that Russian lawmakers had to propose enacting this particular exception. So I imagine that, even with the clarification in place, recent memory drives the museum to be reticent to use it.

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

Thanks John and Noha, you two never cease to amaze me with your knowledge!