[Dieselritzer]

During a recent visit to Goa a friend of mine took me to this place. We traveled from Anjuna towards this museum which is located near Goa Airport and not once did i see any signboard mentioning it, thus you can imagine how badly our state wants people to know about it.

This place is kinda cool because it has a decent collection of aircrafts and some equipment and also has a museum building which displays artifacts of our Navys history and the various missions it has undertaken.

Some additional details from Wikipedia:

"A total of 13 aircraft are on display.

Short Sealand Mk 2 - IN 106 is the only surviving example in India and one of three known surviving Sealands in the world! The Sealand was the first aircraft type to be inducted after the establishment of the Directorate of Naval Aviation in 1953. They were phased out in 1965.

Fairey Firefly TT Mk1 - IN 112 is the sole surviving example in India of the British WW2-era carrier-borne fighter and anti-submarine aircraft that was acquired in May 55 for target towing purposes.

HAL HT-2 - BX 748. The Navy used the HT-2 primary trainers from 1956 to 1964. The current example on display has IAF markings.

de Havilland Vampire T-55 - IN 149. The T55 two seater variant of the Vampire was procured in September 1957 to train Naval airmen on Jet aircraft before the Navy inducted its Sea Hawks

Hawker Sea Hawk FGA Mk 100 - IN 234. The Sea Hawks entered service along with INS Vikrant, India's first Aircraft carrier and served for two decades before being replaced by the Sea Harriers.

Breguet Alizé - IN 202. The Alize was the Navy's first carrier based Anti Submarine and Maritime Surveillance (ASM) aircraft and entered service in 1961.

de Havilland Dove - IN 124. The Dove was procured from the Indian Air Force in 1965 to replace the Short Sealand that were being phased out.

HAL Chetak - IN 475 entered service with INS Vikrant in 1961 as a Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter.

Hughes Hu-300 - IN 083. The Hughes Hu300 two seater helicopters were inducted in 1971 for ab-initio training of helicopter pilots and were phased out in the mid 1980s.

Westland Sea King Mk 42. - IN 505 was procured in 1970 to fulfill an Anti Submarine Warfare role in the Navy.

Lockheed L1049G Super Constellation - IN 315. The main attraction among the outdoor exhibits, this Lockheed L-1049G was originally delivered to Air India in 1955 and named "Rani of Ellora". It was transferred to the Indian Air Force in 1961, then on to the Naval Air Arm in 1976 and finally retired in 1983.

Kamov Ka-25 - IN 573. The Ka-25s, commissioned in 1980 were essentially for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) with secondary surveillance and Search and Rescue (SAR) duties.

Sea Harrier FRS.51 - IN 621. The single seater Sea Harrier on display was delivered in 1991 and was based both on the INS Vikrant as well as the INS Viraat.

I will let the pictures do all the talking now.













Huge replica of INS Viraat. I am a big fan of scale models to this was a treat.

[Dieselritzer]

This seat was actually ejected from an aircraft and some damage can be seen.






Now this is why i visited this place, to see and touch the real aircrafts. its an amazing feeling to know that these machines are part of history and played a key role in defending our Country.

[Dieselritzer]

some more pictures.

This chopper was such a bad ass machine, like they showed in Rambo. Loved it.

[Dieselritzer]

[Dieselritzer]

Final set of pics.

















We went on a weekday and yet there were a few people who had come there to visit the place, i think on weekends it must be seeing decent crowd.

Also as its visible from the pics, the aircrafts are slowly rusting and breaking apart, i hope they take the required precautions to preserve these historic machines which in their prime played an important role for our nation.


Next time you are in Goa, do visit this place.

Thank you.

[GTO]

Thanks for sharing! Moving thread to the forum where we usually discuss defence vehicles .

[V.Narayan]

Dieselritzer, thank you for sharing these photos. Thoroughly enjoyed browsing through. - Narayan

[aah78]

Fantastic thread Dieselritzer!

Loved looking at pictures of the aircrafts & the engines.
Would have loved to see more angles & more details.

Just wish the pictures within the museum were clearer.

I wonder how the museum is funded, as some of the outside displays look really weathered.

[Jeroen]

Very nice, thanks for sharing. Must go and see next time we visit Goa

Jeroen

[Dieselritzer]

Originally Posted by aah78

Fantastic thread Dieselritzer!

Loved looking at pictures of the aircrafts & the engines.
Would have loved to see more angles & more details.

Just wish the pictures within the museum were clearer.

I wonder how the museum is funded, as some of the outside displays look really weathered.

HI, sincere apologies for the crappy picture quality, i was using a humble basic cell phone as this visit was not planned and i was not carrying the DSLR.

Also, we reached there on a very hot and humid afternoon, after a point the heat was too much and hence I could not spend a lot of time taking pictures.

But this place should be visited by people who love to see and touch history, like how i do. The museum is funded by the Navy but its definitely a neglected place as i could not see much admin staff there.

Narayan Sir, Thank you for your kind words.

[shady_lawyer]

DR thank you for some amazing pics. You've brought back my childhood memories. Here go a few recollections.

That huge tri-tail aircraft with the steps attached is a Super Connie (Super Constellation) its huge wingspan used to cast a wide shadow, and for the longest time scooters used to be parked under its wings. I remember spending countless hours sitting under it as comfortable as I could be. (There were two them if I remember rightly, wonder where the other airframe is)

The Sea Hawk had a cartridge starter or as we were told in simple terms you had to put a bullet into the starter to crank it up

As for the Ejection Seat, Martin-Baker the manufacturer of these seats has a club complete with a tie for every pilot who has ejected in their seat.

Last but not the least that shot of the nose of IN621 with its leaping white tiger brings back such poignant memories of the "White-Tigers".

Once again-thank you Sir, for one brief moment I was back there aged 6 breathing in the smell of hydraulic fluid, grease guns and burnt av-gas

[GKMahajan]

Wow!
And I thought I had done a through search for visitable places when I did Goa!

Anyway, this is now added to my to-do list.

Thanks for the good thread write-up and photos.

Girish Mahajan

[Dieselritzer]

Originally Posted by shady_lawyer

DR thank you for some amazing pics. You've brought back my childhood memories. Here go a few recollections.

That huge tri-tail aircraft with the steps attached is a Super Connie (Super Constellation) its huge wingspan used to cast a wide shadow, and for the longest time scooters used to be parked under its wings. I remember spending countless hours sitting under it as comfortable as I could be. (There were two them if I remember rightly, wonder where the other airframe is)

The Sea Hawk had a cartridge starter or as we were told in simple terms you had to put a bullet into the starter to crank it up

As for the Ejection Seat, Martin-Baker the manufacturer of these seats has a club complete with a tie for every pilot who has ejected in their seat.

Last but not the least that shot of the nose of IN621 with its leaping white tiger brings back such poignant memories of the "White-Tigers".

Once again-thank you Sir, for one brief moment I was back there aged 6 breathing in the smell of hydraulic fluid, grease guns and burnt av-gas

Sir I am so glad this thread took you back to some pleasant memories. I have always been fascinated by Armed Forces and their equipment. I have a dream to see a submarine up close, i know there is a Submarine Museum in Southern India and it is in my "to visit" list. I have lived at Nasik and we used to see Artillery equipment and I felt so proud and amazed.

A very close friends sister had covered this place in her blog and I found it so interesting. The aircraft are losing shape and rusting, I really hope they maintain it well. Also this place is extremely small and all the aircraft are cramped up, else they can add more aircraft.

Thank you everyone for those kind words. Its a hidden gem in that beautiful heaven called Goa, a different experience altogether.

[Exhaust_Note]

Awesome. And to think of it I live 5 KMs from this place and it never occurred to me to open this thread.

Yes these are the crafts that we grew up with.

Coming to ejection seats, a well known Naval Pilot (I cannot recall the name) took off from the deck of INS Vikrant and could not pull through and dropped into the ocean. As the airplane sunk (Alize IIRC), he did not eject in a hurry. The ejection seat company had it such that if you eject from a certain depth, the parachute would NOT open and the pilot of softly pop to the surface. He waited for that depth and tried this. It was successful and something that had never been field tested before.

The company which built this rewarded the Pilot and it was big news those days.

Such were and are our defense personnel who at all times are brave, cool and absolutely brilliant.
The 9th Image from below, the Kiran - another cutie and was used as a training aircraft during my childhood days.

It is maintained by the Indian Navy and yes the condition of the displays could have been much better.

The small Blue dual prop bird (we have a side view) seems to be like the Islander...noisy, low flying, slow and absolutely beautiful!

[Dieseltuned]

Absolute brilliant piece of history.



The upkeep of the artifacts remains on backfoot, but then this is the Indian Navy which has never taken care to maintain its legacy. I am absolutely not sorry for the harsh words as my words come from the perspective of 'INS Vikrant'.

The glorious Vikrant which brought honour to the nation and dignity to the forces was unceremeniusly scraped (Maybe 'shamelessly' would be the right word here), No body except a few fringe individuals / groups came up to fight for it. I never expected our so called leaders (political) to come to her rescue but atleast the Navy could have saved her. If she was rusting in the seas and occupying a berth in the cramped dockyards, was it so difficult for the Navy to berth her on a dry piece of land like the submarine in Vishakhapatnam (IIRC) ?

Sad on you 'Indian Navy'. Really sad.

Now I shut up, before I earn an Infraction for the rant

Regards
Dieseltuned