Kbely Aviation Museum

Kbely Aviation Museum (Czech: Letecké Muzeum Kbely) is the largest aviation museum in the Czech Republic and one of the largest of its kind in Europe. It is located to the north-east of Prague, at the military airport Kbely.

Creation of the museum

During the mid-1960s, the Prague Military Museum commenced a programme to recover, restore and preserve historic aircraft from around the country for eventual display at Kbely. Initially, one hangar was used, and about fifty aircraft were placed on public display. The aircraft collection continued to grow, and one of the original Wagner-type hangars on the airfield was brought into use, and now contains the earliest aircraft types on display. Another Picha-type hangar has also been added to bring the number of hangars housing the large and varied collection to four.^[1]

The aircraft collection

The collection at Kbely now includes 275 aircraft, of which approximately 110 are on public display at any given time.

In addition to the many military aircraft and helicopters on display, there are several Soviet-designed airliners, some of which were built under licence in Czechoslovakia. Airliners on display include the Avia 14M (

• 
  Soyuz 28 return capsule that Vladimír Remek returned to Earth in 1978 as the first non-American and non-Soviet cosmonaut in space
• 
  Mil Mi-1
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  Mil Mi-24
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  Mig-15
• 
  Mig-23
• 
  Mig-29
• 
  Czech Avia B-534
• 
  Czech

  Avia S-92
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  Yakovlev Yak-17
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  Bomber Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle
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  de Havilland Vampire
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  Gloster Meteor F Mk.8
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  Lockheed T-33
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  Tupolev Tu-104
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  Sukhoi Su-25
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  Let L-200 Morava
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  Aero L-39 Albatros
• 
  Aero L-159 Alca

See also

• List of aerospace museums
• Kbely Airport
• National Technical Museum (Prague)

References

Notes

Bibliography

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