The Museum of Aeronautical Sciences is an aviation museum located in the city of Narita in Chiba Prefecture, just outside of Narita Airport. It displays materials from the history and development of Japanese aviation.
Besides exhibits of various aircraft models, the museum also offers numerous activity exhibits such as a flight simulator.
Whether you're plane enthusiast or not, visitors can surely enjoy this museum. Inside the museum, visitors can see full scale replicas of historic planes and components of modern planes. Visitors can also try piloting a plane at one of the museum's life sized simulators.
The museum also provides three places from which visitors can observe airplanes taking off and landing at Narita Airport. An indoor observation deck on the top and fifth floor looks out over adjacent Narita Airport, letting visitors observe arriving and departing planes in upholstered comfort. Then, an outdoor observation deck on the third floor that offers a more raw experience of powered flight, with planes roaring overhead just a few hundreds of meters away view of the southern end of Narito Airport's runway.
Restaurant is on the fourth floor of the museum, offering views over the airport while dining.
Aside from museum's observation decks, there are also two public viewpoints around the airport from where you can watch the action on the runway. The Sakura no Oka Observation Area located near the southern end of the runway close to the museum, while the Sakura no Yama Observation Area is at the northern end.
It offers a airport museum shuttle buses depart from Narita Airport Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 to the museum that costs 210 yen. Note that there are only four departures per day.
Alternatively, you can ride a taxi from the airport costs about 1600 yen.
The museum opens at 10:00 to 17:00 and entry is until 16:30 only. It is closed during Mondays and Tuesdays if Monday falls on a National Holiday.
Admission fee is 500 Yen.