Auto und Technik Museum Sinsheim

We went to the Auto und Technik Museum Sinsheim as part of the kids' birthday treat today. They had a blast at its sister museum, Technik Museum Speyer, last November. The private museums have similar themes, but their main attractions are different. There are quite a few locomotives, a U-boat, and the Russian space shuttle Buran in Speyer. At the museum in Sinsheim today, we were treated to the Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic jets; a large collection of Ferraris, Formula-1 cars and other historically significant automobiles; and tanks.

The hubbub at the back of the car reached a deafening level during the 60-km drive to Sinsheim. No, it was not a mechanical problem with the Volkswagen Golf that we checked out from the car-sharing service, it was the continuous back-and-forth between Gabriel and his good friend Milo, whom we had invited on this trip.

It was lunch time when we arrived at the museum, and we all had schnitzel and pomme frites at its cafe (ah...what else?). Our first stop after lunch was the race-car section of the museum. There was a HUGE collection of Ferraris.



There was also a large collection of other racing machines: Jan Ullrich's Tour-de-France bicycle, Michael Schumacker's Formula-1 Ferrari, and the rocket-propelled Blue Flame (which broke the world record for land speed attained by a vehicle, at merely 63o mph or 1000 km/h):



In addition, there were a few historically significant vehicles, all limited editions of Mercedes Benz, that were used by Hilter and Himmler (and some were also delivered to the heads of other Axis states or their cohorts such as Mussolini and Franco). These were limited edition vehicles because of the additional bomb- and bullet-proofing constructs.


The highlight for me was the supersonic jets. After climbing up the stairs I got inside the cabin of both the Tupolev Tu-144 and the Concorde. The cabins were narrower than most commercial jets, and could fit four seats in a row. We really picked a nice Spring day to visit the museum today, as the cabin temperature would be much higher and the queue much longer in the summer.

It was a big deal to transport the supersonic jets to the museum (and the Buran to Speyer). Because of the large wing span, they had to be taken apart and transported mostly by sea, then through the Rhine on the last leg. This is similar to the main experimental apparatus that I am working here, except that this spectrometer was constructed only 400 km away, but had to travel 9000 km to finally arrive in Karlsruhe because of its size. More details are found on this page (Fig. 5, about half-way down the page shows the 9000-km route and the transport story).

The kids played briefly (and that's about an hour) at the museum's playground. Glenda and I figured that they needed to replenish their sugar level and bought them some ice cream before heading to the tank section of the museum.

The boys had a riot in the tank section. They snatched our digital camera and began taking pictures of the armored vehicles and the missile launchers that were on display.



The kids also got a chance to remotely maneuver a small jet later (for 2€). The jet was hung from the ceiling by cables, which were in turn connected to a motor-and-pulley system. Here you see the kids trying to control the jet with a joystick.

We could not leave the museum before another brief play time at the playground. By the time we left at around 18:00, the kids (and the supervising adults) were tired. Thankfully the decibel level in the car was substantially lower on the drive back to Karlsruhe.

More pictures from today's trip are here.