Air Force & Coin Museums
Sites Associated With My Hobbies
There are some attractions you just have to explore when visiting a certain locale. You would not go to Paris and skip the Eiffel Tower, or go to Egypt and bypass the pyramids. I knew when I came to Madrid I would see El Escorial and the Royal Palace. Even without being an art aficionado, I figured I would go to the Prado. I did these things, and they did not disappoint. The art museum was a surprising learning experience for me.
There are other things, however, that I know I will be interested in regardless of where I am. Historical sites may top that list, but those are usually location specific. Aviation and numismatics are a couple of my personal eccentric interests. I love planes – especially military aviation – and I have collected coins as long as I can remember. Tuesday in Madrid was my personal hobby day. I first Ubered out to Cuatro Vientos, the home of the Spanish Military Aviation Academy. This was about an hour’s ride from downtown Madrid on the outer edge of town. I had planned to arrive late morning, at about the time they opened. This worked out perfect, and allowed me again to get plenty of sleep. It was still too cold to run in the morning.
The Ejército del Aire museum had about five large hangars filled with planes, and a few dozen larger aircraft outside on static display. I was welcomed by a former member of the Spanish Air Force who was interested in trading a few stories once he learned I had been an officer in the U.S. Air Force. One of the first things I noticed once inside that interested me was the presence of several American World War II planes. Since Spain was a fascist ally of the Axis powers and had remained neutral during the war, I was mildly surprised to see American aircraft such as the PBY Catalina and the B-25 Mitchell on display as Spanish warplanes. I believe these were sold to Spain as surplus after the war. The Spanish Air Force was responsible for the preservation of a few important combat planes. When we attended EAA’s Airventure in Oshkosh during the summer of 2022, we saw two flying Messerschmitt Bf-109s. Not many of the German planes had survived the war. There are less than seventy intact airframes in the world. I believe both of those we saw at Oshkosh both had some Spanish provenance. Spain continued to produce some of these planes under license through the 1950s. Originally they had a Daimler/Mercedes engine, but later editions were refitted to accept a Rolls-Royce engine. These were fun planes to look at, wherever they were built. None were on display at Cuatro Vientos, however.
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I have also been interested in Messerschmitt’s Bf-108 Taifun. They had a very nice intact Taifun in the hangars. Between the world wars, Germany was of course prohibited from manufacturing military munitions and vehicles – at least until they became brave enough to completely ignore the appeasing European powers in the late 1930s. Prior to that, however, military and industrial leaders in interwar Germany sometimes skirted these rules by designing civilian use machines using concepts that could easily be converted to military use once oversight or restrictions went by the wayside. The Bf-108 is a perfect example. The Taifun is a perfectly functional four place, personal use airplane. It just happens to be a smaller, under-powered version of what would become Germany’s most effective fighter in the coming war, the Messerschmitt Bf-109. It looks very much like a miniature -109. Many of the design features proved easily adaptable to military use.
When I was in the Air Force, one of the more effective foreign built fighters still in use at the turn of the millennium was the French Mirage F-1. I had seen plenty of examples of American and Soviet fighters from the late Cold War. Many of them were still in use around the world. Mirages were used very effectively by the Israelis in their regional clashes with their neighbors in the 1960s and 1970s. Because they were not so widely distributed, I don’t think I had ever seen a Mirage up close prior to my visit to Cuatro Vientos. This museum had perhaps a half dozen different variants. I spent quite a bit of time admiring these pointy-nosed hot rods. They just look like the ought to be the fastest things in the sky.
They had trainers, very early airplanes, demonstration team jets, Swedish aircraft, a Bulgarian MiG, planes from Spanish conflicts in Morocco, biplanes, World War I era fabric jobs, and even a gondola from a trans-Atlantic balloon expedition. All in all it was a very impressive museum. There were not many other plane admirers out there the day I visited. I am not sure if this is just too far from the normal tourist track, if it was just the off season, or if there just are not many tourists to Madrid interested in Spanish military aviation. I was glad I went, anyway.
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Once I finished at Quatro Vientos, I Ubered back into town and went to the Casa de Moneda. Casa de Moneda is the still operating Spanish mint. It also houses a giant museum with a larger selection of ancient and early modern coins than I have ever seen.
There was an emphasis on Spanish and Moorish medieval coins, of course. The displays too time to explain the similarities and relationships between the Moorish coins and those of the medieval Spanish kingdoms such as Castile, Aragon, Leon, and Catalonia. They also went into detail to show how Spanish coinage and monetary practices continued to influence former Spanish colonies long after they gained their independence.
The museum further contained various equipment showing how the making of coins had evolved over the years. I even got to make a coin as part of the demonstration of early modern coin production. The museum had a large section dedicated to scrip, one area illustrating “pre coin” tokens of value, and also an area dedicated to stamps. The whole thing was very professionally set up and a lot of thought went into how to best explain the significance of the evolution of coinage, as well as minting techniques. Unless you absolutely have no interest in this topic, I highly recommend the Casa de Moneda.
When I was making small talk with the museum employees while waiting to set my own coin, the staff members told me that most American tourists who visited left a little angry. Apparently, there is this Netflix show called “Money Heist” that has a whole season dedicated to knocking over the Spanish mint in Madrid. Well, the filming wasn’t done in that building, so tourists leave irritated if that was all they came to see. I didn’t go away disappointed. It was a great museum. I had never even heard of the show.
I used the Madrid metro system to work back toward home. I found a low key restaurant on the way back and enjoyed a nice supper. I kept trying to order paella, but apparently that’s a midday dish. I was unsuccessful in finding paella for supper. I had my fill of other Spanish specialties, and headed home to download photos, write some notes, and to prepare for my last full day in Spain. I was going to try to squeeze Avila and Segovia into one day. I wasn’t sure how the logistics would work. I would need to get an early start.
