Even after the French eye-candy had already moved on to another exhibition I still stayed to look over the aeronautics section a bit more. The first item that really drew my attention was this small airplane you see in the photo above. Its tiny scale is apparent when compared with the motorcycle next to it.
It turns out this aircraft has a very interesting history: it was built out of various impromptu scrap materials by an East German family who wanted to use it to make their escape into Western Germany, back in 1981. Unfortunately they were caught by the secret police of the repressive communist East German state before they could try to do it. During their trial the secret police tested the plane and stated that it could indeed fly.
It is awe-inspiring that someone could be living in such repressive conditions in a European country as recently as 27 years ago -- enough to make a family with no aeronautical or mechanical training try to build a plane to escape that country. The family was sent to jail, but fortunately West Germany put a lot of diplomatic pressure and within a year they were expelled as undesirables into West Germany: what the family had wanted all along.
And now there's no more East Germany and no more secret police, and the family can live where the hell they want. And a very good thing it is too -- I hope they are well and enjoying their freedom. Sometimes we take a lot for granted, but we should appreciate it a bit more, instead of complaining all the time.
Next I went to the upper floors and looked down the length of this V-2 rocket, which was the type used by the Nazis in WWII to bomb England. Looking at it I became conscious that the citizens of London and other major British cities had it pretty rough during the war. Having one of these fall from the sky into your vicinity was liable to cause some mild discomfort.
Finally, I chuckled to myself when I saw this internal cooling space suit. It was designed for Soviet astronauts in the 1970s to use underneath the heavy white space suits we have all seen before. Apparently the outer space suit can make the person inside very hot and so this undersuit has tubes where cold water runs to cool the internal temperature and make it bearable for the astronaut.
However noble and practical the purpose of the suit it still looks terribly camp -- must have been the Soviet equivalent of Liberace who designed it. Not quite the look for a brave and rugged Soviet astronaut.
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