Many years ago, I happened to be in Paris during the Bourget Air Show, and at the end of it, I had a quick 90mn tour of the museum (just before it closed). I was able to get a very quick overview, but a real visit requires at least 1 days, and to read the displays carefully, it's closer to 1.5 days (open to close).
So during my yearly Xmas visit in Paris, I had planned one day to visit everything. Unfortunately, due to very bad weather, they were scared to let us cross the tarmac even 60 sec to go to the hangars that house very cool stuff, including the concordes. As a result, we did a careful visit the first day 'till close, and came back another day to see the rest, including the planes in the hangars.
rainy day, good day for museum visits, except if they stop us from going outside
We started by the air and space room:
France isn't the US, but still pretty involved in rockets and space
I didn't even know the Russians had a space shuttle that went to space once
Next, we went to see to the next hangar to see some unusual planes:
the first plane that crossed the atlantic westbound was French
France also did a lot of work on early helicopters and autogiros:
I didn't even know this existed
The next room were early French jets:
This was it for the first day. We had to go back a second day to see planes in the hangars, including the concorde. It was cool to see the first concorde and the prototype:
They also had a 747 you could visit, including the cargo hold:
older planes had a salon on the 2nd floor, omg...
the first class seats in the 747 have gotten a bit better since then :)
cargo hold
Another hangar with more planes, plus planes outside:
The last part of the museum are the very old french planes (early 1900's).
The French actually pioneered a lot of things, like the first heavier than air flight with a glider in 1856, almost 50 years before the Wright brothers.
Barque Ailée de Jean-Marie le Bris in 1856, which flew as a glider
Ader built and flew a steam engine plane in 1890, way before the right brothers. It didn't have control surfaces like the Wright Brothers plane more than 10 years later, but it still flew under its own power, and with a steam engine no less....
a steam engine plane
The eole, based on the wings from a bat
It flew 50m under its own power in 1890.
One of many early french planes:
the antoinette
Le Bleriot, the first plane to cross the channel
The 14bis from Santos Dumont with Canard
this is the original aviation hall at Le Bourget
Also some interesting planes from WWI and WWII:
german attack plane
An interesting way to shoot with a propeller: metal on the propeller to deflect bullets
OMG, that's not the best metal to make a plane
Gaudron G4 from 1919
4 rudders!
