The Vyskov museum is a private hobby, and hence it is not funded by the state or so. They only get some money from entrance fees and sometime a donation. It is only open during weekends, but that message is only stated on a piece of board, and only in the Czech language. Now, my Czech is a bit rusty 😀 and so I stood at the gate on a Friday afternoon, after lunch break. The only thing I understood from the writings on the wall was that the museum would open its gate at 1400 hrs, but nothing happened. After I waited for 20 minutes I saw someone come out of a shed and I whistled loudly. It turned out to be the owner of the museum and when he came to the gate we managed (through some broken English, German and a lot of hand and foot waving) to have some sort of a conversation. The result was that he opened his museum just for me, after which I had the entire museum for myself for the next three hours. A great afternoon!
Some of you might call it a crappy bunch of aircraft, but I think the guy made a great achievement in aquiring a disused airfield and a lot of aircraft which would otherwise probably have been scrapped or left to rot.
The same goes for the Zruc Air Park. Also a private venture, by mr. Tarantik and son. Some aircraft are open for the public, and you can sit in some cockpits. When I visited the museum last summer there stopped a bus full of American kids. They swarmed the field, climbing, pulling and kicking everything they could, fought each other away to get into the cockpit of the Let-37 Cmelak and started banging away on the controls; the elevators, ailerons and rudder banging and squeaking like hell. And the bus driver (from Germany) told us he was going to come there every week for the next couple of months and next summer….. Shame, as those kids wreck the aircraft and spoil the fun for visitors who are genuinly interested in aircraft museums.
On a lighter note, there were two stunningly beautiful blond-haired Czech girls dressed in stewardess costumes. In exchange for 20 crowns they show you around the Avia or some of the helicopters, while “explaining” the operation of the aircraft to you. You can sit in the cockpit -which is really nice- and they tell you how it all works. The only thing is -they carried their explanatory texts and how to pronounce them in English on a piece of paper, but they really haven’t a clue about what they’re saying. I asked a few questions, but she just looked blank at me with her blue eyes (which was a pleasure in itself, but that’s another story). Not to degrade their attempts to speak English, but I experienced it as funny. I saw it as an example that they are at least trying to accomodate tourists from other countries and in doing so, generate some extra money for the museum.
All in all, two great museums. Go there, if you can.
Tillerman.
Edit: I found a nice 5 minute movie of walking around in the Vyskov museum: http://www.flightlevel350.com/video_streaming.php?id=5541
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