Museo Nacional Aeronautico y Del Espacio, Santiago, Chile

[jesterhud]

Last week I visited the Aviation Museum in Santiago, Chile.
Well worth a visit if you are in town, its about a 20 min drive from the City centre ( or up to an hour in Santiago traffic !), entry is free, no restriction on photography.
There's no car park as such but you can park safely outside the main gate, there is no shop or café at all on site, just restrooms.
The Jet hanger (with the Harrier) is only open at 11am and 3pm for some reason, but we were there at 10:30am and asked a guide and he opened it up for us and let us walk round until we were done.
All photos taken with an Iphone 6S.

Warning -picture heavy post !

[jesterhud]

Out the back of the museum is what can best be described as a scrapyard/dumping ground, or maybe its where they park up aircraft awaiting restoration.
Earlier whilst walking near the F-4 we saw a rather mangy looking dog wandering around, the guide who was near us said it was part of a pack of wild dogs nearby that sometimes fight each other.
A word of caution, when I ventured into the scrapyard area near the C-130 I was confronted by about 10 of these snarling barking dogs, which nearly caused me a personal accident I must say !! I am not sure if you are really supposed to go into this area or not, but I don't recall seeing any obvious signs saying no entry...

[jesterhud]

[jesterhud]

More to follow...

[FarnboroJohn]

Nice to see the indoor stuff in good nick as well as the fascinating boneyard. Interesting gun fit on the A26 - locally designed perhaps, very different from the standard 8 X 50-cal battery.

John

[jesterhud]

[jesterhud]

[CJS]

Really interesting array of airframes there, quite a museum!

What always amazes me with these places is how in hell's name did they get everything there in the first place? All of it by road I suppose (unless it used to be (or still is?) attached to an airfield)? And how did they come by an RAF Harrier? Would it be a gift or would they have paid for it?

Thanks for sharing the pics, pretty good for a mobile too.

Edit - seems it was attached to an airfield, but they sure as heck ain't flying anything else in or out any time soon!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Mus ... 70.6970806

[Maisie]

Some really nice stuff there, I love that S-55T though.. Thanks for sharing.

[jesterhud]

I think the airfield is the old Santiago airport, I don't think its still active, there is an Air Force Academy or something similar next door which had a F-5 and something else as a gate guard on poles inside the fence, but its not possible to get photos of them, there is a security entrance between you and them.
Funnily enough when we walked around the jet hanger the Spanish guide was talking loudly with a cleaner by the entrance (in Spanish), when we left the hanger the guide told my missus (who speaks Spanish) that the cleaner is from Peru and knows an awful lot about jet engines for a cleaner, and with the academy next door he is convinced he is a spy and will be keeping a very close eye on him !!!
The guide was an ex Chilean AF weapons specialist, when he heard I was British his only comment was that the Argentinians had excellent Pilots but terrible Weapons specialists and half their bombs didn't go off, he said if he had been Argentinian it would have been worse for us

[steved]

Great post of some really interesting wrecks and relics. Love the "scrapyard" shots. Thanks for posting.

[jaguar54]

Nice to see the Tiger Moth (DF130) this use to be owned by a Mr. George French back in the 70's, he use to fly it out of Barleylands near Billericay Essex, the civil registration was G-BACK, use to watch him fly this moth when I was a teenager, nice to see it still survives.