We start off with photos of the museum in Speyer, that is the smallest of the two museums. Here you can enjoy the view of a F4 Phantom of the exhibition team of the US Navy “Blue Angels”.

In front of the entrance of the museum you see a Douglas DC-3A from the French Air Inter Europe with the registration F-BFGX.

To the right you see a Nord 2501 Noratlas of the French Air Force. The type was also used in the German, Greek and the Israeli Air Force. Totally 425 specimen were produced.

The type is identical with a Fairchild C-119 ”Flying Boxcar” of which app. 1100 specimen were produced.

At the right of the entrance this previous Cimber aircraft was placed. It has surely made many journeys between Denmark and Germany. It was registered as OY-TOR. The three first ones were prototypes, so this one must have been the first one to be delivered. The aircraft flew for the first time on 28 April 1975 and was delivered on 28 August 1975. Totally the aircraft has flown 4885:38 hours with 11240 landings.

16 aircraft were delivered to three companies plus the German Luftwaffe. The biggest production number was 24. But the three last ones were not finished, and two of them never made it into the air.

The pipe that is twisting from the aircraft is actually a roller-coaster, that was quite popular among the children. You should need a rug to slide on, and they were at the bottom of the pipe. This meant that you had to remember a rug if you wanted to slide down.

It was actually impressive to see how quickly the children made it up to the aircraft to slide down one time after the other.

This outlived Lufthansa Boeing 747 was lifted high up in the air. It was possible to experience it internally, but from the one wing this was also possible since a railing had been built on the left wing.

Here the children also stood a good chance for sliding down the roller-coaster. But only from the platform that was also lifted up into the air.

Here you see the 747 internally. In the one end all internal parts had been removed, which made the aircraft seem further bigger. The opportunity to step down into the cargo compartment under the floor was present.

The view of the wing of a 747. Other stuff than just aircraft is here also on display. Some of the heavy items such as ships, boats and trains were outdoors, while the cars were inside.

This aircraft is an Antonov An-22 that is the largest propeller-driven transport plane of the world. It was also possible to buy a DVD with information of the aircraft. Naturally I bought it and it was worth all the money. For example with a landing on the runway near the museum.

Here you see the enormous cargo compartment of the An-22. The two dark tracks in the ceiling are two cranes that can hang in the far end. The doors in the front lead to the cockpit and other things. This was on a higher level.

The An-22 has four engines and 8 propellers. On each engine there are two contra-rotating propellers as you can clearly see here.

There were also other Antonov aircraft at the museum. Here you see an An-2 aircraft that I know myself from several flights. After my visit to the two museums my journey went to the An-2 meeting in Poland where I joined a flight on An-2 LY-ABK along with 11 other An-2 aircraft. Totally there were 17 An-2 aircraft to this meeting. You can read about the meeting here.

A Russian Mi-8 helicopter that has been built in app. 12000 specimen. The aircraft next to it is the An-22.

The Mi-8 is here seen from another angle. At the right you see some of the tail of the An-22.

The Mi-14 is a further development of a Mi-8 and has an undercarriage to be pulled up and a watertight hull so it can be landed on water. The aircraft is for example used for SAR flying, submarine chasing and should be delivered with bomb doors for depth bombs.

The Mi-24 “Hind” combat helicopter.

The Fairey Gannet AS. A Mk4 submarine chaser of 1958. On the right side you see a red Suchoi SU-22.

It looks very scary this Gannet with two counterrotating propellers.

Here you see a violently amputated Dornier DO-24 seaplane, since it lacks the hind fuselage and the superjacent wing with three engines. You can read much more about this type here with many photos.

Here you see a previous Red Arrows exhibition aircraft with its nose hanging down in one of the exhibition halls. This was all very appropriate since it turned like this in most of its days on the wings. You can read more about it on the homepage of the team here.

A Zlin Z-37 Cmelak (bumblebee) was also hanging under the ceiling. The type is originally built as a spray plane, but in recent years it has been rebuilt for two seats with dual control. However I have also seen an aircraft with two seats behind with its back in the flight direction and naturally without control. Originally there was in some spray planes enough room for an assistant in the back.

Link to Sinsheim Photos.