Museo del Aire/Museo Aeronautico

Description:

• Named Cuatro Vientos (Four Winds) after an airplane that crashed in the Mexican jungles of Campeche during a long-distance flight via Cuba in the 1930s, this time-warp paradise for vintage-plane observers is 8km (5 miles) west of Madrid close to the satellite town of Alcorcón. A wide range of military and civil airplanes dating from 1911 to the 1970s is on display both out in the open and in various large hangars. One of the most evocative is the English-piloted Dragon Rapide, in which General Franco flew to the mainland from Africa and the Canaries in 1936 to launch his coup attempt and initiate the civil war, which ended democratic rule of the country for nearly 40 years. A small cafeteria is on-site.