Gifu-Kakamigahara Air and Space Museum

Kakamigahara has been Japan's aircraft town since 1917, when the army put its airfield here, and Kawasaki has built aeroplanes on the site ever since. The museum holds more than fifty real aircraft, helicopters and full-scale spacecraft models — the largest collection of actual airframes in the country.

The headline exhibit is a Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien, the only surviving example in the world, built here. Alongside it are prototypes and one-offs from Japan's postwar aviation industry that exist nowhere else, and a full-size mock-up of Kibo, the Japanese laboratory module of the International Space Station. It is a serious collection presented plainly, ¥800 for adults and free for junior high school age and under, closed on the first Tuesday of the month.