Tokorozawa Aviation Museum, Aviation museum in Tokorozawa, Japan.
Tokorozawa Aviation Museum is a museum in Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park, Tokorozawa, Saitama. Its main building has a long, curved roof and a facade of tall, convex vertical panels above a dark glass base. Inside, a high arched hangar roof shelters aircraft suspended from the ceiling and displayed on the floor, including a green helicopter marked JG-0002.
In 1909 the Provisional Military Balloon Research Society, acting on an imperial ordinance, chose this site for Japan's first airfield, which opened in April 1911; Yoshitoshi Tokugawa made the first flight there. The museum opened in 1993 on the former Tokorozawa airfield, now the Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park.
The museum's name, Kōkū Hasshō Kinenkan, means 'Aviation Birth Memorial Hall', marking Tokorozawa as the birthplace of Japanese aviation. The original single runway of the 1911 airfield is still visible in the surrounding park. The collection includes the only surviving Nakajima Army Type 91 fighter, designated Aviation Heritage No. 1.
The museum is an 8-minute walk from the east exit of Kōkū-kōen Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line, about 30 to 45 minutes from central Tokyo. By car, take National Route 463 for about 6 km from the Tokorozawa Interchange on the Kan-Etsu Expressway. The original single runway of Japan's first airfield is still visible in the surrounding park.
The Nakajima Army Type 91 fighter on display is the only surviving airframe of its kind in Japan and was designated Aviation Heritage No. 1. The museum also holds a 15 by 20 metre projection screen in a 200-seat theatre.
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