Visiting the Indian Air Force Museum in New Delhi

Just when you think you know your city, along comes a museum that you have never heard of, let alone visited…that was us today, visiting the Indian Air Force Museum in Palam, out near the airport.

I only recently heard about the museum on social media, but we couldn’t join a planned guided visit, but were privileged enough to visit the museum this morning with the charming Shahjahan Avadi explaining things to us.

Our interest in going to the museum was partially due to family history – my husband’s father, a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force, was killed in a plane crash when my husband was only 5 years old. He went to Rashtrapati Bhavan as a wee little boy, to collect his father’s posthumous bravery award.

So, this museum visit was partially to see if there was any more information available about his death (there wasn’t) but also to learn more and discover a new place.

The museum is quite simple, and in the throes of repair work, prior to moving the collection to a brand new location, but it was well set out with lots of clear, detailed explanations about the history and the development of the Air Force.

Battles and campaigns were explained, often accompanied by films, there were lots of wonderful old photos, plus exciting things like 3 time capsules, which are to be opened in 7 years – that should be super interesting!

Here are 2 of the 3 capsules, below:

There was a kamikaze plane (below), something I’d never seen before. Interesting – the plane came down and was found in the jungle.

We saw gi-normous sturdy, military cameras, for taking photos from the air. We saw ejector seats (below):

There was wreckage from past campaigns:

And a stirring message…

Informative, interesting and for us, personally, well worth it.

Himmat looking at his father’s photograph (though his name is, sadly, mis-spelled…)

We bought our own tickets, and no-one (including our charming guide) knew that I blog and write reviews.