Museo de Cuatro Vientos, Madrid, Spain

[ontos]

Grat vshots gekho. 8) 8)

 

[vikingBerserker]

Nice!

 

[gekho]

The Catalina never served in great numbers with the Spanish Air Force, altough this example spent all its operational life in Spain. The first Catalina which arrived to our country belonged to the USAF; during a flight between Canada and Great Britain, the pilot had to landed at Sidi Ifni, Morrocco, by that time a spanish colony. During the WWII Spain was a neutral country, so the american crew and the plane were interned. The Catalina spent seven years at the Barajas airport, when it was finally adquired by the "Ejercito del Aire". During its operational life, it was used as a trainning and naval cooperation aircraft, having its base at Mallorca. In 1957 it was finally scrapped.

However, this wasnt the end for the spanish Catalinas; 30 years laters two examples were adquired in Chile to be used as a firefighting planes. Thanks to that, the Cuatro Vientos Museum has its own Catalina, shown in these pictures with the colours of the first Catalina that arrived to Spain and the only one which served the Air Force.

 

[gekho]

In 1926 Ramón Franco became a national Spanish hero when he piloted the Dornier Plus Ultra on a trans-Atlantic flight. His co-pilot was Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz; the other crew members were Teniente de Navio (Navy Lieutenant) Juan Manuel Duran and the mechanic Pablo Rada. The Plus Ultra departed from Palos de la Frontera, in Huelva, Spain on 22 January and arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 26 January. It stopped over at Gran Canaria, Cape Verde, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. The 10,270 km journey was completed in 59 hours and 39 minutes.

The event appeared in most of the major newspapers world wide, though some of them underlining the fact that the airplane itself plus the technical expertise were foreign. Throughout the Spanish-speaking world the Spanish aviators were glamorously acclaimed, particularly in Argentina and Spain where thousands gathered at Plaza de Colón in Madrid. In 1929 Franco attempted another trans-Atlantic flight, this time crashing the airplane to the sea near the Azores. The crew was rescued days later by the aircraft carrier Eagle of the British Royal Navy. This example is a replica. The original is placed in Argentina.

 

[gekho]

The Morane-Saulnier MS.230 aircraft was the main elementary trainer for the French Armée de l'Air throughout the 1930s. In fact, almost all French pilots flying for the Armée de l'Air at the outbreak of World War II had had their earliest flight training in this machine. It was the equivalent of the Stearman trainer in the United States air services and the de Havilland Tiger Moth in the British Royal Air Force.The MS.230 was designed to meet French Air Ministry requirements. It first flew in February 1929 and proved to be an excellent and stable machine that was very easy to fly. It was placed into service in the military flight schools throughout France and was exported abroad to the air forces of numerous other countries. It also became a popular aircraft for sport aviation. The MS.230 was of metal tubular framing with fabric covering throughout except the forward area of the fuselage, which was metal covered. It had a wide fixed landing gear that made it very stable in takeoff and landing. Unlike other trainers of the time that were largely biplanes, the MS.230 was a high parasol wing monoplane. It did have the usual tandem cockpit arrangement in the fuselage for the instructor and pupil. At least six of these trainers fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, all of them provided by "Armee de´l Air".

 

[gekho]

What can I say of this marvelous aircraft? The Texan is, with no doutb, the most popular and beautiful trainnig plane of the aviation history. In 1954 Spain received many Lockheed T-33 and North American T-6 for trainning purpouses, being also used as fighters during the conflics with Morocco, in 1975. The Texan was found to be a very suitable plane for that operational theater, reaching 165 operational sorties during this conflict.

The Cuatro Vientos Museum has, as far as I know, three examples, but I am almost sure that they have more Texans stored. In the pictures I have attached you can see the three diferent camouflage painting used by the "Ejercito del Aire". The one painting in brown, yellow and green was used in Morocco; as you can see on the picture, its the only Texan armed with machine guns and rockets.

 

[gekho]

The Breguet 19 was designed as a successor to a highly-successful World War I light bomber, the 14. Initially, it was designed to be powered by a 450 hp/335 kw Bugatti U-16 engine, driving a four-blade propeller, and such a prototype was shown on the 7th Paris Air Show in November 1921.A new design was flown in March 1922, featuring a conventional layout with a single 336 kW (450 hp) Renault 12Kb inline engine. The aircraft was built in a biplane platform, with shorter lower wings. After trials, the Breguet 19 was ordered by the French Air Force in September 1923. The first 11 Breguet 19 prototypes were powered by a number of different engines. A "trademark" of Breguet was the wide usage of duralumin as a construction material, instead of steel or wood. At that time, the aircraft was faster than other bombers, and even some fighter aircraft. Therefore, it met with a huge interest in the world, strengthened by its sporting successes. Mass production, for the French Air Force and export, started in France in 1924.

Spanish Air Force bought a prototype and a license in 1923, and started production in the CASA works, in A2 and B2 variants. The first 19 aircraft were imported, the next 26 completed from French parts, then 177 were manufactured (50 of them had Hispano-Suiza engine, the rest the Lorraine-Dietrich 12Eb engine). The Breguet 19 was the basic equipment of Spanish bomber and reconnaissance units until the initial period of the Spanish Civil War. In July 1936, there were 135 in service. They were actively used as bombers during the war, especially on the government (Republican) side. In 1936, the Nationalists bought an additional twenty from Poland. With an advent of more modern fighters, the Br.19 suffered many losses, and after 1937 were withdrawn from frontline service. The Republican side lost 28 aircraft, and Nationalists lost 10 (including 2 Republican and 1 Nationalist aircraft, that deserted). The remaining aircraft were used for training until 1940.

The Breguets of the museum are Br.XIX TR and GR. During this time CASA a built the French Breguet XIX, two of which would be made especially famous. One, was the Breguet XIX GR (Grand Raid) named the Jesus del Gran Poder, currently preserved in the Museo del Aire de Cuatro Vientos (Madrid), which in 1929 flew an epic flight between Seville and Bahia (Brazil). This aircraft was piloted by Captains Ignacio Jiménez and Francisco Iglesias and covered 6746 km in 43 hours 50 minutes of flight. The other was the Breguet XIX Super Bidon named the Four Winds and was flown by Mariano Barberan and Collar Joaquin Serra to Havana (Cuba) in 1933.

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

More cool photos Gekho.


Wheels

 

[gekho]

This Avro is a replica, as many others aircrafts of the museum. I recomend you to visit this page. It describes the construction process of the planes, piece by piece.

replicas museo del aire Polikarpov I-15 Chato

 

[gekho]

The Cierva C.6 was the sixth autogyro designed by engineer Juan de la Cierva, and the first one to travel a "major" distance. Cierva, the engineer responsible for the invention of the autogyro, had spent all his funds in the research and creation of his first five prototypes. So, in 1923, he turned to the Cuatro Vientos Aerodynamics Laboratory chief, Commander Emilio Herrera, who succeeded in persuading General Francisco Echagüe, the director of the Military Aviation Aeronautics Department, to take over the second stage in the research and development of Cierva's Autogyros.After several wind tunnel tests, Military Aviation built a Cierva C.6 autogyro in an Avro 504 frame. This machine, piloted by Captain Joaquín Loriga Taboada, performed three flights, all of them in March 1924. One of those flights, the eight minute trip from Cuatro Vientos airfield to Getafe airfield (10.5 km / 7 miles), was considered a giant's step and the "leap into glory" of Cierva's autogyros.

The Cierva C.6 prototype was fitted with ailerons mounted in two small wings, elevators and rudder. This complete three-axis control scheme was needed because the pilot had only limited control over the rotor (See Helicopter rotor). Only the front propeller was powered, so this aircraft could not hover, and could lose control at low speed. The vertical axis rotor spun freely; the faster the autogyro flew, the faster the rotor would spin and the greater lift it produced. A replica of the Cierva C.6 was built to be shown in Murcia pavilion in Seville Expo '92 World's Fair. That replica can be now be seen in Museo del Aire, Cuatro Vientos, Madrid, Spain.


Before the experimental Cierva C.19 Mk V, autogyros had been controlled in the same way as fixed wing aircraft, that is by deflecting the air flowing over moving surfaces such as ailerons, elevators and rudder. At the very low speeds encountered in autogyro flight, particularly in the landing phase, these controls became useless. The experimental machine showed that the way forward was to have a tiltable rotor hub and a control rod coming down from the hub to the pilot's cockpit with which he could change the rotor plane. This was known as "direct control" and was adopted by the C.30. The production variant, called C.30A in England was preceded by several development machines.

The first in the series was the C.30, a radial engined autogyro with a three blade, 37 ft (11.3 m) rotor mounted on an aft-leaning tripod, the control column reaching back to the rear of the two cockpits. The engine was the five-cylinder, 105 hp (78 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major I used in the C.19 series. The fabric covered fuselage carried an unbraced tailplane, without elevators but with turned up tips. The port side plane had an inverted aerofoil section to offset the roll-axis torque produced in forward flight by the advancing port side blades. As with most autogyros, a high vertical tail was precluded by the sagging resting rotor, so the dorsal fin was long and low, extending well aft of the tailplane like a fixed rudder and assisted by a ventral fin. A wide track undercarriage had a pair of single, wire braced legs; there was a small tail wheel. It flew in April 1933. It was followed by four improved machines designated C.30P (P here for pre-production) which differed in having a four-legged pyramidal rotor mounting and a reinforced undercarriage with three struts per side. The rotor could be folded rearwards for transport. The C.30P used the more powerful (140 hp, 104 kW) seven-cylinder Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major IA radial engine.

The production model, called the C.30A by Avro, was built under licence in Britain, France and Germany and was similar to the C.30P. The main alteration was a further increase in undercarriage track with revised strutting, the uppermost leg having a pronounced knee with wire bracing. There was additional bracing to the tailplane and both it and the fin carried small movable trimming surfaces. Each licensee used nationally built engines and used slightly different names. In all, 143 production C.30s were built, making it by far the commonest pre-war autogyro. Between 1933 and 1936, Cievra used one C.30A (G-ACWF) to perfect his last contribution to autogyro development before his death in a DC-2 (fixed wing) crash in late 1936. To enable the aircraft to take off without forward ground travel, he produced the "Autodynamic" rotor head, which allowed the rotor to be spun up by the engine in the usual way but to higher than take-off r.p.m at zero rotor incidence and then to reach operational positive pitch suddenly enough to jump some 20 ft (6 m) upwards. At least one of the RAF C.30As was in January 1935 on floats as a Sea Rota.

A full-scale flying reproduction was built in Spain in the mid-1990s. After a brief flying career a crosswind accident led to the damage to the rare rotor blades. The aircraft is now on display at the Museo del Aire, Cuatro Vientos, Madrid, Spain.

 

[gekho]

Links were established in the 1950s with the United States. Spain received its first jets, like the F-86 Sabre and Lockheed T-33 together with training and transport planes like the T-6 Texan, DC-3 and DC-4. This first age of jets was replaced in the 1960s by newer fighters like the F-104 Starfighter, F-4C Phantom and F-5 Freedom Fighter.

 

[gekho]

The Spanish Air Force received their F-104s under the Military Assistance Program: 18 Canadair-built F-104Gs and three Lockheed-built TF-104Gs were delivered under MAP to Spain's Ejercito del Aire in 1965. These aircraft were transferred to Greece and Turkey when they were replaced by F-4 Phantoms in 1972. It is notable that no aircraft were lost through accidents during 17,000 hours of operational use in Spain although it should also be noted that the aircraft was used in its intended role of an interceptor and mainly in very good flying weather.

GAF F-104G Starfighter, Luftwaffe s/n 26+23, is preserved at the Air Museum of Spain, in Madrid, Spain. The aircraft is an ex-Luftwaffe machine which retains its German markings on the left side but is unusually painted with Spanish markings on the right side.

 

[gekho]

Spain acquired 270 U.S.-built F-86Fs between 1955-1958. They were designated C.5s and assigned to 5 wings: Ala de Caza 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. They were retired 1972. The Patrulla Ascua´s F-86 (old spanish acrobatic team, now replace by the Eagle Patrol) on display was withdrawn from service on December 31st, 1971 and donated to the Museum by the USAF in 1974.

 

[gekho]

Following the end of the War, the Spanish government allied themselves with the Western countries in their struggles against the Soviet Union. On March 18th 1946, Spain's first dedicated paratroop unit was formed. The establishment of a mobile force and key changes in the Ejercito mid level structure made it possible for the country to receive, on a continuing base, top flight aircraft from the United States.

Between the fall of 1950 and the spring of 1959, the Ejercito incorporated its first jet powered platforms; US-built F-86 Saber fighters, Lockheed T-33 trainers and DC-3s and 4s transports were delivered to the Spanish government. Most of those first generation jet systems were replaced in the mid-to-late1960s. It was in the spring of 1968 that the Spanish government initiated an aggressive re-armament effort that culminated with the incorporation of top shelf F-4Cs Phantoms and F-5s Freedom Fighters.

 

[gekho]

The 1970s brought in another refurbishing phase with the assimilation into the Ejercito of French-developed Mirage III and F-1s. Dassault's deltas, as the III was commonly refer to, formed the backbone of the Spanish AF for much of the 1970s and early 80s. The Mirage III was one of the biggest success stories in the field of post-WW II combat aircraft design. The vaunted Mirage III first flew on November 17th, 1956 which made the system more than a decade old when it joined the Ejercito.

 

[gekho]

The 1970s brought in another refurbishing phase with the assimilation into the Ejercito of French-developed Mirage III and F-1s. Dassault's deltas, as the III was commonly refer to, formed the backbone of the Spanish AF for much of the 1970s and early 80s. The Mirage III was one of the biggest success stories in the field of post-WW II combat aircraft design. The vaunted Mirage III first flew on November 17th, 1956 which made the system more than a decade old when it joined the Ejercito.

The other major platform utilized by the AF was the Mirage F-1. The F-1 is a single seat strike fighter which made its maiden flight on December 23rd, 1966. It became operational with the French Air Force in the spring of 1974. The F-1 was one of Dassault's biggest export success stories.

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!

 

[gekho]

The aircraft was designed in response to a Spanish Air Force requirement in 1975 for a jet trainer to replace its aging fleet of Hispano HA-200s and Ha.220s. Like many European jet trainers, it was also to have a limited attack capability. CASA sought technical assistance from Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) and Northrop, the latter designing the wings. A design along largely conventional lines was the result, the only surprising feature being a large internal weapons bay beneath the rear cockpit, allowing for a wider variety of armament to be carried than the underwing pylons alone would allow. Alternatively, this bay can be used to carry reconnaissance equipment. The aircraft is designed in a modular fashion to ease manufacturing and maintenance, and enjoys a great range since its initial requirement called for autodeployment to the Canary Islands from the Spanish mainland.

Although the first flight took place on June 29, 1977, test flights did not begin until April 17, 1978. Performance was found to be better than anticipated by the designers. An initial Spanish Air Force order for 92 machines was placed, a dedicated trainer version designated C-101EB-01 by CASA and E.25 Mirlo ("Blackbird") by the air force. The first aircraft entered service on March 17, 1980. This was followed in production by a combination attack/trainer with an uprated engine designated C-101BB-02 bought by Honduras, which bought four, and Chile, which bought four aircraft and parts for another eight to be assembled locally by ENAER. All Chilean BB-02s are designated T-36 Halcón.

In 1983, CASA flew a dedicated attack version, the C-101CC-02, which was again ordered by Chile. This time, only the prototype was built in Spain, with the remaining 22 machines built by ENAER. This variant features yet another engine upgrade and increased fuel capacity and is designated A-36 Halcón ("Falcon"). Sixteen similar aircraft, the C-101CC-04 were sold to Jordan. The final version of the C-101, the C-101DD was demonstrated by CASA in 1985, featuring vastly improved avionics and the capability to carry the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile, but failed to attract any orders.

In the 1990's the armament system was modernized.

 

[gekho]

The Transavia PL-12 Airtruk is a single-engine agricultural biplane aircraft designed and built by the Transavia Corporation in Australia. The Airtruk is of all metal construction with the cockpit mounted above a tractor engine and short pod fuselage with rear doors. It has twin tail booms with two unconnected tails. Its first flight was in 22 April 1965, and was certified on 10 February 1966.

It was developed from the Bennett Airtruck designed in New Zealand by Luigi Pellarini. It has a 1 tonne capacity hopper and is able to ferry two passengers as a topdresser. It can be used as a cargo, ambulance or aerial survey aircraft, and carry one passenger in the top deck and four in the lower deck. The Airtruk is also sometimes known as the Airtruck. Because the name "Airtruck" was registered by the New Zealand companies Bennett Aviation Ltd and Waitomo Aircraft Ltd, for their PL-11, Transavia found another name for their PL-12 ("Airtruk").

The PL-12 was famously seen in the 1985 movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

No idea of what it was doing in Spain or how it arrived here

 

[gekho]

In 1950, Westland Aircraft, already building the American Sikorsky S-51 under license as the Westland Dragonfly, purchased the rights to manufacture and sell Sikorsky's larger Sikorsky S-55 helicopter. While a Sikorsky-built pattern aircraft was flown by Westland in June 1951, converting the design to meet British standards (including the provision of a revised main-rotor gearbox), was time consuming, and the first prototype British aircraft, registered G-AMJT, powered by the 600 hp Pratt Whitney R-1340-40 Wasp did not fly until August 1953. This was followed by ten Whirlwind HAR.1s, which entered service shortly afterwards. They served in non-combat roles, including search and rescue and communications functions. The HAR.3 had a larger 700 hp Wright R-1300-3 Cyclone 7 engine.

The performance of early versions was limited by the power of the American Wasp or Cyclone engines, and in 1955, the HAR.5, powered by the more powerful British power plant, the Alvis Leonides Major, flew for the first time. This was followed by the similarly powered HAS.7, which became the first British helicopter designed for anti-submarine work in the front-line when it entered service in 1957. It could either be equipped with a dipping Sonar for submarine detection or carry a torpedo, but could not carry both simultaneously, so sonar equipped "Hunters" were used to direct torpedo armed "Killers". The HAS.7 was powered by a 750 hp (560 kW) Alvis Leonides Major 755/1 radial engine. It had a hovering ceiling at 9,400 ft and a range of 334 miles at 86 mph. Later in their lives, some HAR.7s were converted to use the Rolls-Royce Gnome turboshaft engine.

From its start with the Navy, the Whirlwind came to be used by the British Army and Royal Air Force. More than 400 Whirlwinds were built, of which nearly 100 were exported to the foreign customers.