The Aviation Museum Destna

Contact address:

nam. Miru 61
378 25 Destna
Czech Republic

Phone: +420 723 518 377

Contact: www.destna.cz/muzea/letecke-muzeum-destna

The museum was established in the summer of 2008. The building belongs to the town of Deštná, which offered the premises of the former cinema to the Aviation History Club of Jindřichův Hradec. In just one month, an exhibition was built, which was officially opened on 30 August 2008 during the "XV Meeting of Czechoslovak War Aviators" by Brigadier General Miroslav Štandera, a former RAF fighter pilot, and the President of the Senate Milan Štěch. At present, the museum has about 285 square metres of exhibition space.

The museum focuses on Czechoslovak aviation from its very beginnings after the establishment of the independent republic, but the main theme is the fate of our airmen in the period from 1939 to 1945. During their more than thirty trips abroad, the members of the club visited all the graves of our deceased war airmen on the European continent, and the soil from the graves is displayed in the memorial room, together with a list of all airmen by name. Their stories are written in two volumes of the book "Za hroby se lvy" ("Expeditions to the graves with lion sign". This exhibition is unique in Europe!

In other rooms there are exhibitions dedicated to the airmen from the Jindřichův Hradec region on the battlefields of the Second World War and to the aviation archeology in the South Bohemian region. A separate part of the museum is a exhibition space commemorating our post-war military aviation. In the main hall there are exhibits such as the Flying Flea, Z-425 Šohaj and L-13 Blaník gliders and famous Zlin Z-43 Carpe diem. In this hall you can also see the fuselage of the MiG 15-UTI, the engine of the MiG-21, the 1:1 replica of the V1 rocket and much more. There are also interesting exhibits for pyrotechnicians, aircraft modellers and those interested in the archaeology of aerial warfare, represented by the remains of engines from German Me-262 Schwalbe jet fighters found at Plana airfield near České Budějovice.

The last room is a 60-seat cinema. Here visitors can select and view documents from the Aviation History Club's rich archive. There are documents from the club's expeditions abroad, from the archaeological research of the German Fw190 fighter plane crash site at Otín near Jindřichův Hradec in May 2011, or the moving story of Czech pre-war pilot Julinka Liška, who never stopped loving her fiancé, the legendary acrobat and RAF fighter pilot Václav Jícha, until the end of her days in 2010.

XVI. meeting of the Czech war aviators in 2009

The museum is open every year from 1 May to 31 October. During this period about five thousand people from the Czech Republic and abroad visit the museum every year. The exhibitions can be visited without a guide, but occasionally members of the club organise guided night tours. Bookings for group tours and other organisational information can be obtained from the Deštná town website:www.Destna.cz.

Commemorative medal AVERS
Commemorative medal REVERS