Swedish Airforce Museum

The Swedish Airforce Museum was established in 1984, on an airfield 7 km west of the centre of Linkőping, named after Carl Cederstrőm (1867-1918), the ‘flying baron’, who trained with Louis Blériot (1872-1936), set up a flying school on the site in 1912, and died in a crash in the Gulf of Bothnia. The airfield remains a base for jet training. Displays cover the development of flying from the early twentieth century to the present. The main sections deal with the pioneers of aviation, the development of the Swedish air force and the manufacture of aircraft in Sweden between the two World Wars, Swedish neutrality during the Second World War and the first SAAB planes, aviation technology and the theory of flying, and aviation during the Cold War. Visitors can see a flight laboratory and the workings of a control tower, and experience flying on a simulator. A feature of the museum is the wreck of a Swedish DC3 aircraft shot down by a Soviet MIG fighter over the Baltic in 1952, which was recovered in 2003 and put on display in 2009. Aircraft on display include an English Electric Canberra, a Gloster Gladiator, a Supermarine Spitfire and a Vickers Varsity from the United Kingdom, a German Focke Wulf Fw47J and eleven Swedish Saabs.