State Aviation Museum of Ukraine in Zhuliany is the largest historical and technical museum of the country.
Having started with only 30 vehicles, today museum owns the exposition of nearly 70 aircrafts and helicopters. Another branch – samples of air weapons and drones, as well as an exposition of aircraft engines. The museum presents units of almost all leading aviation construction departments of Soviet period – Tupolev, Yakovlev, Ilyushin, Antonov, Sukhoi, and copies of aircraft of the early twentieth century.
The sources of continuous replenishment of the museum were the airfields, which had decommissioned the vehicles. Major systems still work on many presented aircrafts.
For example, all electronics functions properly, and recently there were engine starts. Due to this does visitors are interested in cockpits of the aircraft Il-62 and Mi-8, because anyone can sit behind the steering control.
The world's largest helicopter Mi-26 is also presented in the museum. It can take on board a little less than 80 people, but the payload affects more than 20 tons. Maximum landing weight is 55 tons. 24 000 horsepower. Before transportation exhibit was cut into 6 parts, each was loaded onto a separate truck and escorted to Kyiv, where he was welded into a single unit.
Special feature to visiting of the museum is a close vicinity to operating airport "Kyiv" (Zhuliany), a runway of which is 100 meters behind the museum. From there take off and landing of planes give an unforgettable impression.
