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Flugwerft Schleissheim
Aviation History for Everyone

The Flugwerft Schleissheim is one of the outside locations of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. It resides on the historic airfield in village of Schleissheim, near Munich. Here you can experience aviation history with authentic atmosphere.

This museum features the German aviation history from the very beginnings with Otto Lilienthal up to the present.

It's located at the historic airfield at Oberschleissheim. The airfield and the hangar buildings (that now host the exhibitions) were constructed in the early 20th century by the Königlich-Bayerische Fliegertruppen (Royal Bavarian Flying Corps).

I had visited the exhibition years ago, but recently we went again on a rainy and grey November day with our 3-year old son. To say he was thrilled would be an understatement!

Funnily enough, about 80 percent of the visitors had kids with them... obviously there are lots of little aircraft enthusiasts in Munich. Anyhow, if you visit us without children, it'll still be a very worthwhile visit.

The Historic Hangar

The museum tours starts with the historic hangar. Here you find airplanes like the Flamingo training and sports plane for three persons on the picture above. The model you can see is a prototype as it was fitted with a Porsche engine, based on automotive engines.

All the aircrafts in this hangar represent the history of the Schleissheim airfield. Continuing the walkabout you get to the "Dawn of Aviation" with rebuilt models of the first "flying instruments" used.

One of the artifacts is the "Normal Segelapparat" used by German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal. They resemble modern hanggliders, but are made of wood and look very basic. I wouldn't dare to use one of those!

Next you pass the radio and morse telegraphy room (upstairs) and the meterological station. This first hall of the museum is very interesting for adults and aviation enthusiasts, but not very suitable for children. Therefore we headed straight into the new big exhibition hall.

The New Exhibition Hall

This is the part our son loved!

One of the highlights is the authentic rocket engine at the very end of the hall. The first stage of the EUROPA rocket is impressive. It's sheer size with more than 30 (90 feet) makes you feel small and unimportant.

Our son wanted to know exactly where the fire comes out and why there's no fire at the moment :-)

Off course there's many more to see: huge amounts of helicopters, ejector seats, sail planes, hang gliders, engines, vertical-take-off-and-landing aircrafts, jet aircraft, flying boats, and much more.

There's even a helicopter simulation (that unfortunately was closed for maintenance during our visit) and a plane simulator.

At the Flying Circus show you can watch model airplanes making soap bubbles or your kid can get an "Aviation Certificate" for successfully flying a model plane.

Or you could do some sports and try the experiment on how a propeller plane works.

The Flugwerft Schleissheim team has done their best to make the visit to the aviation museum entertaining and relaxing at the same time. There are benches scattered around the hall where you can sit down and take a break. You even find "picnic areas" to eat your own food.

And last but not least, the main attraction for our son: a jet aircraft where kids can climb in and pretend to be jet pilots. It was difficult enough to get him out of that thing again!