July 9, 2023 - Germany
Berlin - Gatow German Air Force Museum
West of Berlin is the Gatow Air Museum, on a former Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force Gatow airfield. Lynnette is excited to be here!
That's a weathered German F-4 Phantom on the left. Quite a few jets were on static display.
In the 1950s RAF Gatow was an important centre for intelligence gathering by Royal Air Force Linguists monitoring on a 24/7 basis Soviet air traffic broadcasts from its bases all over Eastern Europe. A Signals Unit (26SU) was also based at RAF Gatow. 26SU was a specialist Signals Intelligence unit operated by the RAF on behalf of GCHQ Cheltenham tasked with monitoring Warsaw Pact military communications over East Germany and Poland.
These funky looking towers probably had something to do with intelligence gathering.
The museum was located in big Hangar 3.
Panavia 200 Tornado. This multi-role combat aircraft was developed jointly by the UK, Germany and Italy in the 1970s. There were two versions: fighter-bomber and Electric Combat and Reconaissance (ECR). The Tornado's special terrain-following radar allows very-low-level flying.
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F
The funky-looking Fairey Gannet AS.4 was developed by the British for carrier-based, anti-submarine warfare. Two West German Navy squadrons operated the type.
Along with its well-known counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Fw 190 became the backbone of the Jagdwaffe (Fighter Force) of the Luftwaffe. The twin-row BMW 801 radial engine that powered most operational versions enabled the Fw 190 to lift larger loads than the Bf 109, allowing its use as a day fighter, fighter-bomber, ground-attack aircraft and to a lesser degree, night fighter.
The Fw 190 was well-liked by its pilots. Some of the Luftwaffe's most successful fighter aces claimed many of their kills while flying it, including Otto Kittel, Walter Nowotny and Erich Rudorffer. The Fw 190 had greater firepower than the Bf 109 and, at low to medium altitude, superior manoeuvrability, in the opinion of German pilots who flew both fighters.
This A-8 version was heavily armed -- four 20mm cannon in the wings and two MG17 machine guns in the fuselage -- so as to be able to bring down the American B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers.
Uniform of Wolfram von Richtofen, a German World War I flying ace who rose to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) in the Luftwaffe during World War II. Between the World Wars, he recognised the need for close air support in military campaigns and championed the dive bomber [which led to the development of the Ju-87 Stuka].
When the Second World War broke out, Richthofen commanded a specialised ground-attack air unit, Fliegerkorps VIII (8th Air Corps), first as a small active service unit in the Polish Campaign, and then as a full-sized Air Corps in Western Europe, from May to June 1940. His unit proved to be decisive at certain points in the French Campaign, particularly covering the German thrust to the English Channel. He continued to command air units in the Battle of Britain and the Balkans Campaign in 1940 and 1941. Richthofen achieved his greatest success on the Eastern Front. In particular, the Crimean Campaigns of 1942, where his forces offered vital tactical and operational support to Army Group South. Afterwards he commanded Luftwaffe forces in the Italian Campaign before retiring in late 1944 on medical grounds. Richthofen died in July 1945 of a brain tumour while in American captivity.
RAF Gatow played a key role in the Berlin airlift of 1948.
Following the reunification of Germany, the British ceded control of the station on 18 June 1994. The Station Flight and its two Chipmunk T.10s was disbanded on 30 June 1994. The station was handed back to the German Air Force on 7 September 1994. The airfield was kept operational for a very short time, and then closed to air traffic in 1995. The western end of the two runways was later removed to make way for housing, leaving only the eastern portions, cut mid-field on a diagonal line. The remaining portions are used for the outdoor aircraft display.
Model of the big Short S.25 Sunderland Flying Boat used by the British during World War II for maritime patrol. In particular, the type was heavily involved in Allied efforts to counter the threat posed by German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Sunderland was also used in the Berlin airlift. RAF Gatow has the unique and unlikely distinction of being the base for the only known operational use of flying boats in central Europe, during the Berlin Blockade, on the nearby Wannsee, a lake in the Havel river. The flying boats' specialty was transporting bulk salt, which would have been very corrosive to other aircraft, but was not as corrosive to the flying boats because of their anodised skins.
Looking down on all the planes. But the plane I most wanted to see was not here: the Cessna 172 Mathias Rust flew to Moscow, landed on a bridge near Red Square and taxiied on in. I was told by a museum rep at the German Museum of Technology in Berlin that it had been there, but was moved to the Gatow Air Museum. But it was not here either, and there was no museum rep to talk to.
Here's Rust's 172 hanging in the Berlin German Technical Museum when it was there.
Rust's route to Moscow. Incredibly, Rust had only 50 hours of flight time, and the 172 was a rental, yet he flew all the way to Keflavik and then back to Norway, Finland and finally landed in Moscow on 28 May 1987.
Rust in Red Square. The Soviet authorities are probably trying to decide what to do with him. He was eventually sentenced to four years in a general-regime labour camp for hooliganism, for disregard of aviation laws, and for breaching the Soviet border.[13] He was never transferred to a labour camp, and instead served his time at the high security Lefortovo temporary detention facility in Moscow. Two months later, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to sign a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe, and the Supreme Soviet ordered Rust to be released in August 1988 as a goodwill gesture to the West.
Rust's flight through a supposedly impenetrable air defence system had a great effect on the Soviet military and resulted in the dismissal of many senior officers, including Minister of Defence Marshal of the USSR Sergei Sokolov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, former World War II fighter pilot ace Chief Marshal Alexander Koldunov. The incident aided Mikhail Gorbachev in the implementation of his reforms, by allowing him to dismiss numerous military officials opposed to his policies.
Lynnette enjoying the Gatow Air Museum!
We checked out all the static displays outside on our walk back to our car.
Dassault Mirage III E
