The Spirit of Adventure - Michael McCafferty

Day 13: The Air and Space Museum
Paris, France
I tried to sleep late this morning, hoping it would help clear up my laryngitis that
has persisted over the last few days. Still having much difficulty speaking, my plan for
today was to see the Air and Space Museum, assuming that I would not have to use my
voice for anything in a museum, and I could give my throat a rest. It was definitely on my
list of things to do, better than staying in bed.
I admit to feeling like it was going to be a dull day because I have been to quite a
few air shows and air museums in the US, and I figured on seeing a lot of the same stuff.
Wow, was I wrong!
The French call this place "Musee de l'air et de l'espace" and it is located at Le
Bourget airport, the site of the Paris Air Show. It consists of seven buildings that house
aircraft segregated by type. In one building there is only spacecraft, including a real
Suyoz T6 command module which still shows considerable re-entry scorching. All the
rest of the approximately two dozen spacecraft are mostly replicas of various satellites,
including the first one ever in space, the Sputnik I, as well as the Vostok I capsule which
carried Yuri Gagarin to become the first man in space. It looks like some Jules Verne
underwater diving helmet right out of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." There was even a
Russian lunar land rover.
A separate building was devoted to prototypes, and my visit gave me a whole new
appreciation for the extraordinary variety of aircraft that the French have developed. And
with such style! I wish I had the words to describe the most unusual, eccentric, and yet
undeniably lovely shapes that they gave their aircraft. They surely did not spend their
time waiting to see what the Americans were doing so they could copy it!
Another building housed a collection of aircraft from 1919 through 1940 (between
the wars). One of my favorites was the huge twin engine Farman Goliath F-60 that looks
like a flying streetcar, and carries 12 passengers seated in wicker chairs (which seem not to
be bolted to the floor!). The passengers are comfortable inside the plane, but the pilot
must endure the elements flying in an open cockpit. There was no tail wheel, only a skid.
The wheels were held in place only by bundles of bungee cords.
My true favorite among the planes in this building was the Potez 53, a 1933
monoplane with retractable main gear and a tailskid. It achieved 380 kph at the time. One
of the most curious things about this plane is that the glassed-in area for the pilot's head is
only about six inches across, an incredibly tight fit which seemed that it would be
impossible to turn your head even a little. I liked this airplane because it just looked so
good, so I share a photo of it with you here.
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