Museum "Wings Above the Waves"

Aviation, as a very strong tool in hands of people, increases the responsibility of the mankind, as it can be used with the same success both for development of civilization and friendship between people and overall annihilation of the mankind.

Igor Ivanovich Sikorskii

The Naval Aviation Museum "Wings Above the Waves" – Exhibition and Educational Centre – is based in Crimea. The choice of the site was a reasonable one. Historically, Crimea has always used for the deployment of numerous Air Force bases of the USSR. Today, it houses Ukrainian and Russian military installations in Kirovskoye, Donuzlav, Saki, Gvardeiskoye, Kacha, Belbek, Bagerovo.

Though the former USSR republics have several aviation museums, none of them offer a comprehensive solution which would include the collection of real aircrafts, the information centre with documents of the historical events, pilots’ histories, data (which were often inaccessible for public) describing the aircrafts and armament, and the educational centre for children and youth.

A few words about what naval aviation is and which role it plays in armed forces.

naval aviation

Armed - naval aviation (in other words - naval aviation, aviation of Navy (Maritime Forces) or the Air Force of Navy) is a part of Maritime forces of a state. It is intended to destruct ship's groupings, to convoy, to land enemies in the sea and on bases, to search and destruct its SM (submarines), to disturb supervisory control system and to command its seat of war, to cover groupings of their own ships, to direct reconnaissance, to issue target designation with the interest of weapon employment by the Maritime forces and to solve other problems.

Naval aviation includes naval missile-carrying, anti-submarine, reconnaissance, assault aircraft of marine and land location, as well as subdivision of coastal and naval basing, as well as units, subdivisions and support organizations. Naval Aviation reports directly to Chief of the Main Staff of the Navy. Units of central subordination directly report to him.

naval aviation In some countries armed forces are named as aviation of Armed - Marine forces (aviation of fleet). It includes base patrol aviation, also assault, fighters, reconnaissance and special-purpose (distant radar detection, electronic warfare etc.). Besides there is an aviation of United States Marine Corps in the USA.

It is obvious, that such capacious and interesting, in some cases secret, stratum of information simply requires the access to broad public of curious and interested people. We even don't say a word that such a centre would become an attractive place for meetings and communication of the present and retired pilots.

In fact, there is nothing difficult about organising a naval aviation museum which would be really interesting and exciting.

Here are the main steps towards our goal:

1. A spacious, light, air-conditioned premise to protect the aircrafts from UV-rays, temperature differences and precipitation
2. Reconstructed and restored aircrafts
3. Operating controller systems and e-guides in several languages
4. Model engines, gear, ammunition, pilots’ uniforms
5. Histories of the world’s renowned aviators’ carries
6. Description of the military conflicts where naval aircrafts were used such as the Falklands Conflict, the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, etc., represented in videos, computer-simulated models, charts, diagrams and other visual aids
7. Current role and tasks of naval aviation, the innovations such as: women pilots
8. Optional course of out-of-school training in the museum: both military and technical training, as well as general school subjects (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology) essential for designing, operating and servicing the high-end equipment
9. Aviasimulator systems featuring real dashboards
10. Arranging friendly environment for disabled visitors

Undoubtedly, such centre cannot be organised without professional consultants and cooperating with companies or partnership with other museums.

Therefore, for the creation of the museum we invited the Cold War Aviator World Association, in particular represented by Colonel Yu. I. Churilov, Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General A. N. Sikvarov, Colonel A. Z. Domrachev, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Director of Naval Aviation, many other experts who give their advisory and organisational assistance by sharing threir memories and assuring us that we are doing an important and really necessary thing by creating the museum.

We get an absolutely essential technical support and help from MiGremont Zaporizhzhya State Air Repair Plant and Yevpatoria Aviation Repair Plant. The new simulator software is developed and implemented by highly experienced Kharkiv aircraft designers.

Our work is considerably facilitated and therefore we avoid many problems and mistakes due to the other museum partners with whom we have friendly and win-win relations. They are the Long Range Aviation Museum in Poltava, the National Space Facilities Control and Test Centre Museum (Dnipropetrovsk), the National Space Flight Control Centre Museum (Yevpatoria), the Museum of Ukrainian Armed Forces (Kyiv), the Aviation Museum (Riga) and the Department of Humanitarian Policy of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.