Air and Space Museum

The museum at Le Bourget airport, Paris, is one of the oldest in the world to be concerned with aviation, having been established at the suggestion of the aeronautical engineer Albert Caquot (1881-1976) as early as 1919. Its collection now numbers some 20,000 objects. The earliest, from the sixteenth century, related to experimental flying apparatus, and the museum tells in some detail the story of Man’s subsequent attempts to fly, and has some important artefacts relating to the ballooning exploits of the brothers Mongolfier. A particularly poignant exhibit is part of the landing gear of l’Oiseau Blanc, an aircraft which left Le Bourget bound for New York in 1927, and dropped part of its undercarriage after take-off in order to reduce weight. The aircraft disappeared over the Atlantic and no trace of it was ever found.  The collection also includes some artefacts relating to airships of the 1920s and 30s. The museum displays a wide range of aircraft from fighters of the First World War, through a Supermarine Spitfire and a Douglas DC3 Dakota of the 1940s, to a prototype Concorde.

Air and Space Museum
Musée de l’air et de l’espace
Aéroport de Paris-Le Bourget
93350 Le Bourget
France
+33 (0) 149 - 927000
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