Swedish Air Force Museum

Story

The Swedish Air Force Museum is located at Malmen Airbase in Malmslätt, just outside Linköping, Sweden. Malmen is where Baron Carl Cederström, nicknamed the "Flyer Baron" founded his flying school in 1912. Malmen Airbase is home to the Royal Swedish Airschool operating SAAB 105 jet trainers. Along with the Swedish Army Museum in Stockholm, Flygvapenmusem constitutes the government agency Statens försvarshistoriska museer .HistoryThe museum’s collection of artefacts includes aircraft, engines, instruments and uniforms. The museum has a knowledge centre (faktarum), with library and archives, containing literature, periodicals, plans, photographs and personal files relating to aviation. The museum is part of the National Swedish Museums of Military History, a government agency. The establishment of the Swedish Air Force Museum was also aided by the Östergötland Society for Aviation History (ÖFS). Today, ÖFS acts as a support organisation for the museum, and actively works at tasks such as the restoration of aircraft.The museum has been in existence since 1984, and served both as the F 3 Malmslätt squadron museum and a storage building in Ryd. The inauguration of the museum in 1984 marked the beginning of a public aviation museum at Malmen – the cradle of Swedish aviation. In 1989, the museum underwent an additional expansion with a second exhibition hall, enabling it to exhibit a large collection of aircraft from the decade following 1910 to today’s JAS 39 Gripen.Design and facilitiesIn 2010 the museum had a major expansion and rebuild. The exhibitions are now divided in themes, for example: 1. Pioneers in aviation, describing the early developments in Swedish aviation history in the period 1910 - 1926. 2. Between the wars, describing the establishment of the Swedish Airforce and the early developments of the Swedish aviation industry in the period 1926 - 1939. 3. The Second World War, when the Swedish Airforce increased in size and the first SAAB planes joined in the period 1939 - 1945. 4. Aviation technology 5. Sweden during the Cold War, showing preparations made in case of war in the period of the 1950s - 1980s.