Nationaal Luchtvaartmuseum

Geschiedenis

The Nationaal Luchtvaart-Themapark Aviodrome is a large aerospace museum in the Netherlands that has been located on Lelystad Airport since 2003. Previously the museum was located at Schiphol Airport.HistoryIn 1955 several organisations, such as the airline KLM and aircraft manufacturer Fokker, initiated a foundation called "Stichting voor het Nationaal Luchtvaartmuseum" with the single goal of creating a national aviation museum.The first installment of this aviation museum opened its doors in 1960 on Schiphol airport under the name Aeroplanorama and had only seven aircraft on display. It closed its doors in 1967 and a new museum called Aviodome was opened in 1971 on Schiphol. The main building was a large aluminium geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, the largest in the world at the time, which housed most of the aircraft on display. Hence the 'dome' in the name Aviodome.Over time, the location became too small for the growing aircraft collection and in 2003 the museum was moved to a new location on Lelystad Airport. The building at Schiphol was demolished and the name was changed to Aviodrome. On the current location, it has three buildings: the main building where most of the aircraft on display are located and where there's a restaurant and a cinema, a replica of the old Schiphol terminal building from 1928 and a hangar for aircraft storage with limited access for visitors. Added to the aviation theme were several artifacts from several Dutch space programs, such as the backup flight-article of ANS (Astronomical Netherlands Satellite), a mockup of IRAS and the high-speed windtunnel model of the Huygens probe. In doing so the aviation museum became an aerospace museum.