FlyPast 06.2018

MUSEUMS BEIJING

Asia’s Mammoth

A

s a teenager in the 1970s

I was fascinated by the

mysterious aircraft from

behind the Iron Curtain. I would

glean hazy information from

blurry spy camera shots taken at

the annual May Day flypasts.

The very idea that I’d ever be

wandering through row after row

of hardware that had been ranged

against the West during the Cold

War, Vietnam and beyond, was the

stuff of dreams.

And so it was with some

astonishment that I found myself

visiting China’s aeronautical

showcase, which is set in

impressive grounds covering at

least 100 acres. It features a man-

made lake and a 2,000ft tunnel

cut into the rocky hillside. It is

home to more than 300 airframes,

of which 60 are underground.

Unsurprisingly, the attraction is

the largest of its kind in Asia and

enjoys huge attendance figures,

although it is relatively unknown

to tourists from outside China.

Indeed, on the day of my visit I

seemed to be the only Westerner

there.

As you might expect, there’s

a liberal smattering of patriotic

architecture to help set the scene.

In modern China, there is little that

harks back to the revolution of the

1950s, but if you’re fascinated by

communist-era statues, they’re

here in abundance.

Dozens of bronze monuments

are dotted throughout the

site, celebrating

achievements in Chinese aviation

from the 1930s. Dominating Hero

Avenue is an enormous sandstone

memorial to China’s aviators and

astronauts.

Be prepared

The very size of the China Aviation

Museum at Datangshan, 25

miles (40km) north of central

Beijing, is daunting and the lack

of a guide map in English makes it

difficult to know exactly where to

begin. I hope my experiences will

encourage others to add it to their

‘must-do’ list.

The museum is

situated on what

was previously

an operational air base, itself part

of the vast Shahezhen military

complex that closed down in the

early 1980s. Datangshan opened

to the public in November 1989 to

mark the 40th anniversary of the

founding of the Chinese People’s

Liberation Army Air Force

(PLAAF).

It is possible to get to the venue

by the subway and after a couple

of bus changes, but language

difficulties could make this a

frustrating and long-winded

process. I paid the equivalent of

£20 for a cab direct from my

hotel. The journey can

take as long

Classic proletarian iconography – an early

aviator, jet pilot and cosmonaut, part of an

imposing monument.

26 FLYPAST June 2018