Modern Istanbul is a major aviation hub. Every day, numerous planes from different countries arrive at the city's several airports. I decided to learn more about Turkish aviation history and visited the Istanbul Aviation Museum located in the western part of the city.
How to get there by metro
The museum is located near the closed Ataturk Airport. Just a few minutes from the entrance to the territory is the Yeşilköy station, which belongs to the Marmaray line.
According to the museum's website, the exhibition space is open from 9 AM to 5 PM, with entry closing at 4 PM. Monday is a day off. The cost of an entrance ticket is 100 lira (as of January 2023), payment can be made in cash or by bank card. I had to pay an additional 50 lira for the opportunity to take photos with my camera.
In preparing this article, I came across information that one of the largest parks in the world will appear on the site of the old airport, so in the future museum guests will be able to combine their visit with a walk in a huge recreation area.
A bit of history
The decision to create an aviation museum in Istanbul (then Constantinople) was made in the first quarter of the 20th century. Several aircraft were sent to a site in the Asian part of the city, but the technology suffered greatly during transportation, so the idea of opening the exhibition had to be postponed.
The idea of creating a museum was revisited in the 1960s. The opening of the exhibition space took place in 1971. Initially, it was located at the airport in the city of Izmir, three hundred kilometers away from Istanbul.
Seven years after its opening, the museum was closed. The remote location of the exhibition was the main reason. The modern history of the exhibition space began in 1985 when the museum, which we can visit today, was opened.
In many sources, the exhibition is simply called the Aviation Museum or the Museum of Aviation, although sometimes you may come across a different name, the Turkish Air Force Museum . As I understand it, this name better reflects the essence of this place, since the main exhibits of the exhibition in the open air are military planes.
According to information from the internet, in addition to the open-air exhibition, the museum includes exhibition halls inside buildings, but they were closed for renovation at the time of my visit.
Here I conclude the story about the museum, but I suggest that you continue exploring the topic of transportation in the article about the Sirkeci train station in Istanbul. It was on its platform that the famous Orient Express used to arrive.
Have a nice trip!
