{"id":48573,"date":"2022-09-14T23:06:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T21:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=48573"},"modified":"2025-10-11T23:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:23:09","slug":"a-veteran-of-the-spanish-navy-in-an-aviation-museum-in-the-capital-of-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/09\/14\/a-veteran-of-the-spanish-navy-in-an-aviation-museum-in-the-capital-of-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"A veteran of the Spanish Navy in an aviation museum in the capital of Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the district of Don Mueang in the city of Bangkok is the Museum of the Royal Thai Air Force, with more than 60 aircraft on display.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/08\/31\/the-air-arm-of-the-spanish-navy-in-old-photographs-of-the-us-national-archives\/\">The Air Arm of the Spanish Navy in old photographs of the US National Archives<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/07\/16\/the-relics-of-the-world-war-ii-at-the-pearl-harbor-aviation-museum\/\">The relics of the World War II at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>This museum was inaugurated in 1952 and in 2012 began a renovation process that ended in 2020. <strong>Its contents cover more than 100 years of aircraft history<\/strong>, since the oldest of its aircraft is a Breguet 14, a 1917 model of which the Royal Air Force of Siam (as this country was then called) operated more than 40 examples. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/SilentSightseer\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Silent Sightseer<\/a> published three weeks ago <strong>an interesting video taking a tour of this museum:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Royal Thai Air Force Museum Tour Bangkok Thailand [4K]\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7UGrMn8OZtU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This museum has some very interesting aircraft. One of them is this <strong>JAS-39A Gripen fighter donated by the Swedish Air Force<\/strong>. A very modern fighter to be already in a museum.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52357074677_a982cbe298_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the museum there is also <strong>a General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon<\/strong>, the 79-0324. Interestingly, it is a model still used by the Royal Thai Air Force.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52358340074_9a3d36bd2e_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The museum also includes World War II gems, such as this <strong>Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver dive bomber<\/strong> (the 83410), along with <strong>a Fairey Firefly Mk I fighter<\/strong> (the c\/n F.7402, an aircraft that belonged to the British Royal Navy). Both models were used by the Royal Thai Air Force.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52358262223_cf18114da2_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Among the aircraft on display is also this <strong> Vought A-7E Corsair II attack aircraft of the Royal Thai Navy<\/strong>, the 160563, a model that was withdrawn from service in 2007. Next to it is <strong>a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighter<\/strong> of the Vietnam Air Force.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52357074692_173a053247_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the museum there are also two <strong>Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw<\/strong> helicopters that belonged to the Royal Thai Air Force, one of them with an original presentation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52358262263_e3b087181a_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although the Silent Sightseer video is good, I did not watch it because I have a special interest in Thai military aircraft, but because of the following aircraft:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52358447835_528363e33b_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is <strong>one of the nine AV-8S Matador fighters<\/strong> (7 AV-8S single-seaters and 2 TAV-8S two-seaters) <strong>that were sold by Spain to Thailand in 1996<\/strong>. This Spanish version of the first Harrier was operated in Spain by the 8th Squadron of the Aircraft Fleet, flying from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier \"D\u00e9dalo\". <strong>The aircraft on display at the museum has four external fuel tanks on its underwing supports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52358340169_22ec1b2b36_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Thailand bought these aircraft to operate from the HTMS Chakri Naruebet aircraft carrier<\/strong>, the flagship of the Royal Thai Navy, built at the Baz\u00e1n (today Navantia) shipyard in Ferrol, Spain. She is a sister ship of the defunct Spanish aircraft carrier \"Pr\u00edncipe de Asturias\".<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52357074777_c8f70ce4c0_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The AV-8S were operated by the 301 Squadron of the Royal Thai Navy<\/strong>, being withdrawn from service in 2006. The aircraft on display in Bangkok is <strong>the old VA.1-10 \/ 01-814 of the Spanish Navy<\/strong> (with construction number 161178 and numeral 3109 in the Royal Thai Navy), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/08\/31\/the-air-arm-of-the-spanish-navy-in-old-photographs-of-the-us-national-archives\/\">that we saw here recently in this photo from 1988<\/a>, taken from a Corsair II of the US Navy:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52324393614_4ae942c3b7_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/aviationspottersonline.com\/royal-thai-air-force-museum-don-muang-airport-thailand\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aviation Spotters Online<\/a>, <strong>this Matador arrived at the Royal Thai Air Force Museum in June 2017<\/strong>, along with the Royal Thai Navy Corsair II seen above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the district of Don Mueang in the city of Bangkok is the Museum of the Royal Thai Air Force, with more than 60 aircraft on display.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11549,16888],"tags":[17438,17443,17444,1257,6652,17446,3539,8139,17448,7560,8143,17445,10669,17447,17442],"class_list":["post-48573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-history","category-museums","tag-bangkok","tag-curtiss-sb2c-helldiver","tag-fairey-firefly","tag-general-dynamics-f-16-fighting-falcon","tag-hawker-siddeley-harrier","tag-htms-chakri-naruebet","tag-mikoyan-gurevich-mig-21","tag-royal-thai-air-force","tag-royal-thai-air-force-museum","tag-royal-thai-navy","tag-saab-jas-39-gripen","tag-sikorsky-h-34-choctaw","tag-spanish-navy","tag-thailand","tag-vought-a-7-corsair-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}