The construction of the aviation museum in Mladá Boleslav is nearing completion

Young Boleslav - Central Bohemian Governor Josef Řihák (ČSSD) knows who approved the construction of the aviation museum in Mladá Boleslav even without receiving a hundred million euro grant. He told reporters today during a tour of the construction site. He does not want to disclose the name of the employee from the regional office for now. The case will first be addressed by the regional council and representatives. The project, costing around 150 million crowns, initiated last spring by former governor David Rath, will now have to be paid for by the region from its own budget.
    The construction of the museum at the airport in Mladá Boleslav, which unexpectedly did not receive a grant from the Regional Operational Programme this summer, is nearing completion. Workers are finishing the interiors, where the museum staff will be located, the adjacent parking lot is finished, and the cladding of the observation tower will also be completed in the near future. The roof of the building is adorned with black silhouettes of historical aircraft.
        The price of nearly 150 million crowns for the museum is not, according to the governor, unreasonable, but he refused to speculate on whether he personally would have started a similar project. “I have nothing against the construction; it is beautiful, but unfortunately, we have to pay those 150 million from our budget,” he said after the tour. To date, the regional office has paid about 40 million crowns for the construction, and invoices for another 80 million crowns have been issued. Whether the museum will be profitable is, according to Řihák, hard to judge because the money from tourism is divided among various providers. The expected visitor numbers are projected to be around at least 50,000 people annually.
        The facility will be operated by the regional contribution organization Museum of Mladoboleslavsko. The region will attempt to reduce operational costs, including cooperation with the Škoda Auto Museum, which is expected to rent part of the exhibition space at the main entrance. At the same time, both institutions should promote each other mutually.
        According to Mayor Raduan Nwelati (ODS), the city would not have carried out the construction of the museum in its current scope precisely due to the expected operating costs. The city could not afford to subsidize the museum, according to him. “When I compare it to the swimming pool, where attendance is around 80,000, and yet it is not profitable enough for the budget to balance,” he said.
        The exhibition is expected to include around 30 historical aircraft from the collections of the Mladá Boleslav Method of Vlach Foundation, private owners, as well as the National Technical Museum and the Kbely Aviation Museum. Non-functional exhibits will be suspended in the exhibition hangar, and on the floor, planes will be available for those interested in flights. According to architect Michal Hlaváček, people will be able to try a three-dimensional simulator in the form of a cockpit of a World War I fighter. There are also plans for a simulation of jumping out of an airplane, where a person in straps will be exposed to the wind, with a projection of the approaching ground running underneath. In the shaft of the twenty-meter observation tower, a real jump will be possible on a special winch. A modeling workshop is also being prepared for children.
        The building is designed for year-round operation, the architect stated, cost savings can be achieved, for example, by not heating the hangar with planes.