In the district Malmslätt on the outskirts of Linköping, Sweden, you find Flygvapenmuseum (Air Force Museum), a museum of cultural history where you can see a variety of objects from the Swedish military aviation history. The museum re-opened June 12, 2010 after having undergone an extensive renovation and expansion and now among other things includes a 5100 m² exhibition hall with a stylish and high-gloss HTC Superfloor™. It is also this floor that is the reason for our visit to Flygvapenmuseum.
At Flygvapenmuseum, one of the things you can see is the DC-3, which in 1952 under mysterious circumstances was shot down over the Baltic Sea. The DC-3 exhibition is also the reason for the major renovation but the museum also offers several other interesting exhibits. Visitors can also learn the principles of aero-dynamics, try to be a pilot for a day in the museum’s flight simulator and much more. But as mentioned, our interest was focused primarily on the exhibition hall with the new concrete floor.
A 5100 m² high gloss HTC Superfloor™
The exhibition hall houses a large number of aircrafts from the last 100 years, or from the pioneers of aviation to today’s JAS 39 Gripen as said on the museum website. The aircrafts are arranged and presented on a 5100 m² high gloss HTC Superfloor™ that provides a powerful first impression. Kjell Pettersson på Stångå Clean AB who was responsible for grinding the floor and Patricia Kastberg, Project Manager at the museum meet us to show us around.
Patricia tells us that during the first two months since the re-opening the museum has had more visitors than it previously had in a year and that they are very pleased with the floor. In the beginning however they were a bit worried that the shiny floor would steal too much of the attention from the aircrafts and they therefore considered a less shiny version of HTC Superfloor™. Nevertheless, with everything in place you can see that instead of stealing attention the floor strengthens the overall impression and give the aircraft the luster they deserve.
Two HTC 950 RX
Before the renovation the concrete surface was covered with a thick layer of green epoxy so it is not hard to grasp the enormous difference the floor has done. Kjell tells us that they had two HTC 950 RX when grinding the floor. “In total it was between 28-30 tonnes of grinding dust, or 6 kg grinding dust per square meter”, says Kjell.
With a HTC 650 HDX Stångå Clean AB also grinded the 900 m² parquet floor in the restaurant and library, something we decided to return another day for. We left the Flygvapenmuseum knowing that an interesting environment now had the floor it deserves.