Volandia Museum

[Jon.M]

Yesterday I visited Volandia the new aircraft museum which is in the buildings of the ex-Caproni factory at Malpensa. The museum opened in May this year.





The original Caproni Ca1 which made the first flight from Malpensa farm in May 1910 is the oldest preserved aircraft in Italy.



This Macchi 205 is a replica, Malpensa terminal 1 is in the background.



Another replica.





One for the bikers A Caproni 175



In 1960 an Italian oil survey team found the body of an airman in the Libyan desert. After an extensive search his aircraft, a Savoia Marchetti S79 was found 90Km from the body. It got lost after a mission and crash landed after running out of fuel some 500Km from it's base. The rest of the crew were with the aircraft. This is a recreation using parts of another S79 from the same squadron.



The Vampire was built in Italy under licence. This one served in the Swiss air force but has been painted in Italian colours. It flew into Malpensa in April this year. It's last flight unfortunately.





The last hall was called "The Future of Flight" and contained this. I suspect that Augusta are a major sponsor of the museum and good on them for that.

I enjoyed this new museum. It has a library, a model room and even a flight sim area.

A couple of the shots have some camera shake as I took them without flash and the shutter speeds are long.

Jon.M

[Garry Russell]

Hi Jon

Thanks for this...a nice bit of variety there

Does the Flight Sim area display ancient, historical flight sim exhibits from a bygone age..FS.9 for example???

What the Zinc Chromite airliner fuse section in the background of the penultimate pic??

[Jon.M]

Four of these and four others with a joystick and mouse in front of a monitor. FS9 mostly.

I didn't get a picture of the sim mounted in the helicopter in the background with large monitors fixed in front of the windscreen.

I found the one in the picture confusing as most of the controls weren't where I expected them to be.

I don't know what the fuselage is. It was about the only Item which didn't have a description. Most descriptions were in English French and German as well as Italian.

Jon

[Garry Russell]

Cheers John

Nice little set up for the kids (of all ages) to play on

The fuse looks a bit like a Metroliner to me...but there isn't an Italian connection as such......maybe something else, hard to tell

[Lewis - a2a]

Brilliant pictures, SM79 and 205, drooool!

Love the way the SM79 is displayed, very much reminds me of scenes from the Med episode of World at War. "This is a land made for war"

[DaveB]

Nice one Jon Any new aircraft museum is good news and one that has bikes too.. well, what can I say

Tks for that

ATB

DaveB

[Jon.M]

More Photos.









Apart from the first one not particularly classic.

This link has more on the SM.79 http://www.gavs.it/FotodelNonno/S79K_MM_23881.htm for those who speak Italian. There are a couple of photos of the original when it was found. The helicopter is also in the museum displayed on sand in front of the SM.79.

As this is a nice bike ride away from home and costs an incredibly cheap €8 I'm sure I'll visit again. I'll try to identify the fuselage for Garry when I do. As just about everything in the museum has some sort of local connection it presumably has something to do with the Italian aviation industry in Lombardy.

Finally for the bikers this is my bike last week on the Italian French border at Col de Larche.



Jon

[airboatr]

Very nice Jon, thanks for posting those pics
Nice bike too.

[Garry Russell]

Amazing how parts of France can look so much like parts of Italy

[Jon.M]