An outing

The gang were going down to the Air Force Museum in Linköping and I brought along the Nephew, so as to properly indoctrinate him. Well, clearly the Lego pit was much more interesting than old aircraft, but climbing in and out and in and out and in and out of the old Draken cockpit was fun too.

The rest of us were treated to a very detailed description of how to actually fly a mission in the Draken by a museum guard who turned out to be a former control and elint officer. In response to a tricky question he said: “I'll hand that over to a weapons technician.” and turned to another museum employee hovering nearby who then went into a deeper explanation of the properties of first-generation Sidewinder missiles. Museums seldom keep with knowledgeable staff, but this seems to be the rule at the Air Force Museum. Kudos!

The museum shop is also to be commended in that they are not afraid of procuring rare model kits in order to be able to have as many Swedish Air Force Aircraft as possible available for purchase.

(However, I was a bit annoyed that in spite of promises, the museum had not updated the sign that claimed the 57 mm cannon on the SAAB T-18B was the largest-calibre gun ever carried on an aircraft. In Sweden, to be sure, but not in the world, where at the time several 75 mm monsters were lugged around and in later days even 105 mm howitzers have been used onboard aircraft.)