Looking back with fondness, one remembers the gliders on which we began to conquer the skies, and which can now only be found in a museum: “Czaple”, “Muchy”, “Bociany”. — Leszek Kostecki*
M-20 Mewa of Aerogryf Aviation at the Rakowice-Czyzyny airstrip • MLP archive
A collection of models made and donated to the Museum by Jozef Roguz, former director of the Aerial Application Services Plant in Mielec. The 1:48 scale models depict all aircraft types used in Polish agricultural aviation. The collection can be viewed in the educational room in the MLP Main Building.
An aircraft used in Polish agricultural aviation as a utility and forest patrol aircraft. The example on display at the MLP outdoor exhibition was donated by Aerogryf Aviation after a ferry flight to the museum’s Rakowice-Czyzyny airstrip.
Future agricultural pilots took their first “steps” in the air on popular gliders, mostly produced by the Szybowcowe Zaklady Doswiadczalne (Glider Experimental Works) in Bielsko-Biala. The glider exhibition in the Large Hangar features types well known to pilots trained between 1945 and 1990.
The engine exhibition features, among others: the GTD-350 turboshaft engine and rotor gearbox used in Mi-2 helicopters; the Belphegor’s engine — the AI-25 turbojet, along with the AI-9 starter unit carried at the rear of this aircraft’s fuselage — AI-9; the M-11 engine in the D version (used in the CSS-13) and FR version (Yak-12); the Shvetsov ASz-62 powerplant used in the An-2 and M-18, among others, is exhibited in the MLP Main Building (with a three-blade propeller — the powerplant comes from a Li-2 aircraft).
The Polish Aviation Museum’s collection holds many valuable exhibits related to agricultural aviation that are not currently on display. Among them, the most significant is the CSS-13 “crop duster”. Other interesting objects include: an additional PZL-106 cockpit, the wings and agricultural equipment of the PZL-126 Mrowka, and a PZL-107 Kaczor II concept model.
