519. Something Completely Different

There are loads of air museums all over the world, and they vary enormously in content and quality.

There’s an Air Force museum in Sintra, north of Lisbon, Portugal which is small but does a particularly good job of representing early aviation and I was able to make a repeat trip this week when I was in the area.

The earliest aviator represented is one Joao Torto who is said to have jumped from the top of the local cathedral in 1540, and although he survived the actual jump he died from his injuries a couple of days later. Wikipedia says the earliest reference to this story is in the 19th century, however, so make of that what you will!

Aviation pioneer Santos Dumont may have lived in Paris but he was a Brazilian, so it’s fair enough for this Portuguese museum to focus on him. He published the drawings of his successful Demoiselle at the time, so this is a particularly accurate replica. The picture doesn’t show how tiny the aircraft is.

The Demoiselle replica built for the Magnificent Men film is held by the Shuttleworth Collection, and I went to a lecture in the early 1970s by Air Commodore Wheeler who was in charge of the flying scenes for the film. He said that the replica was built at Eastleigh airport, near Southampton using the original plans, but they couldn’t get it to fly, until they realised that Santos Dumont was tiny and weighed next to nothing! All the flying for the film was done by joan Hughes, an ex-ATA pilot with the required absonce of avoirdupois…

Santos Dumon’ts first heavier-than-air machine to fly was the 14bis canard. Once again, this is a high quality replica.

This Deperdussin Type B was given to the Portuguese government by a Brazilian in 1912, and served as a trainer until 1916, though in later days it became a ‘penguin’ with its wings clipped to allow it to taxi but not fly.

The 80hp Rhone engine in this Bleriot XI replica has been sectioned, allowing a ppep into the very complex valve operating mechanism. I wish I unerstood ours!

Under the 14bis is this Caudron G3 2-seater from WWI. Once again, a very good quality reproduction.

And the Farman MF-4 Longhorn was used by many air forces in WWI. I like the spare wheels carried on the undercarriage.

I only just discovered a truly excellent facility on the museum’s website – a virtual tour, allowing you to sit in all the cockpits. It’s brilliant!