Aircraft Museum in Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam has an unusual pair of museums along its beachfront. On one side of RK Beach Road stands the INS Kursura Submarine Museum. Almost directly opposite it is something equally interesting: a huge retired naval aircraft that visitors can actually enter.

This is the TU-142 Aircraft Museum, housed around a former TU-142M aircraft of the Indian Navy.

From Naval Aircraft to Museum

The TU-142M was a long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft. The Indian Navy inducted the aircraft in 1988, and it remained in service for 29 years.

It was not a small machine either. With four powerful turboprop engines, eight propellers and its enormous swept wings, the aircraft looks impressive even when standing motionless on the ground.

During its years with the Indian Navy, the TU-142M fleet completed more than 30,000 hours of accident-free flying. It participated in important operations including Operation Cactus in the Maldives, Operation Vijay and Operation Parakram.

The aircraft was finally retired from service on 29 March 2017 at INS Rajali near Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu.

One of the retired aircraft made its final flight to Visakhapatnam on 8 April 2017. It was later dismantled, transported to the Beach Road and reassembled at its present location.

The TU-142 Aircraft Museum was inaugurated in December 2017.

Inside the TU-142 Aircraft Museum

The museum is interesting because the visit is not limited to looking at the aircraft from outside.

Before entering the aircraft, visitors can see several components and pieces of equipment associated with naval aviation. These include an aircraft engine, propeller, survival kit, data recorder, oxygen equipment and sonobuoys.

A sonobuoy is particularly interesting. It is a small device dropped into the sea from an aircraft to help detect and track submarines underwater.

You can then move through sections of the actual aircraft and get some idea of what it must have been like for the crew to operate this enormous machine during long maritime patrol missions.

From outside, however, you get the best sense of its size. The long fuselage, swept wings and those huge propellers make the aircraft impossible to miss.

Two Retired Naval Giants on RK Beach

What makes this part of Visakhapatnam particularly interesting is the location.

Cross the road and you have the INS Kursura, a real submarine that once served beneath the sea. On the other side stands the TU-142M, which once watched the same seas from the air.

A submarine and an anti-submarine aircraft facing each other across a road.

That alone makes this little stretch of RK Beach rather special.

Happy travelling.