Hellenic Air Force Museum

The museum’s mission is the concentration, preservation and presentation of HAF’s heirlooms, the study and documentation of history, the presentation of the nation’s battles and the Spirit of Flight throughout the centuries.

HAF’s museum is by nature both an aviation, military and technological museum. According to the ICOM classification, HAF’s museum belongs to the category of historic-technological museums that study and present a specific human activity in all its forms. In this case, the museum presents the Hellenic Air Force and its history.

Special mention should be made to the fact that in Greece there had been no previous experience in the fields of rebuilding historic aircraft and organizing a technologic museum. During the early days of the museum only few of the staff could imagine the vast variety of the projects that an aviation museum has to undertake and the difficulties that arose, as many of the museum’s activities were carried out for the first time in Greece.

The museum’s target is to attract a great number of visitors, who will also be able to actively participate in the museum’s activities, as is the case in many modern museums of its kind abroad.

The HAF museum encourages visits to its premises, especially for our younger friends, who could experience an astonishing first contact with the field of aviation technology. Regardless of their age, all our visitors can observe the impressive restoration works carried out on the museum’s exhibits, which require a phenomenal combination of both knowledge and technical skills.

History

In 1986 HAF founded the HAF Museum Organisation Bureau. In 1988 this was incorporated into the newly formed HAF History Service, whose mission was the gradual concentration of material in order to establish an Aviation Museum in the future.

In 1990 the Museum Establishment Bureau was founded as part of the HAF Public Relations Directorate, in order to continue the concentration of material and find the best possible way for the realization of the Museum. Among various solutions and after evaluating the organisation charts of many other museums, both Greek and international, it was decided that it should have the form of a military unit.

On July 1992 the HAF Museum was formally established by the Supreme Air Council, positioned within the Dekeleia Air Base and administratively subsumed under the HAFGS.

Since October 2006 the museum is administratively under the Hellenic Air Force Air Training Command.

Source: www.haf.gr