Did you know Portugal’s Air Museum took more than 60 years to go from idea to opening?

Portugal’s Museu do Ar, the country’s first museum dedicated to aviation, opened to the public on 1 July 1971 in a former Military Aviation hangar in Alverca. According to the Portuguese Air Force, however, the idea is far older: the statutes of the Aero Clube de Portugal already discussed the need for an aviation museum when the club was founded in 1909.

The Air Force’s account traces a long path. Admiral Gago Coutinho, acting on orders from the Ministry of the Navy, began gathering pieces given to him and to Sacadura Cabral for a planned national aviation museum. In 1963 a room in the Palácio dos Pimentas, made available by Lisbon City Council, was used to display national aeronautical items. A commission was set up in 1965, and a decree-law created the museum in Alverca in 1968. Colonel Edgar Cardoso was its first director.

As the collection grew, the Air Force restored a hangar of about 3,500 m² at Air Base No. 1 in Granja do Marquês, Sintra, with support from Sintra municipality, ANA and TAP. The main site was inaugurated in December 2009, coinciding with the centenary of aviation in Portugal and the 300th anniversary of Bartolomeu de Gusmão’s hot-air balloon demonstration on 9 August 1709. In 2011 three hangars dating from 1920 were converted to add about 3,000 m² of exhibition space.

The museum also has sites in Alverca and Ovar. Opening hours and visiting conditions are not described on the pages consulted, so visitors should check them with the museum before travelling.