On my last full day in Tokyo, I was scheduled to visit the Japan Airlines maintenance facilities and visit their SKY MUSEUM in the late morning. Both Japan Airlines and ANA offer complimentary tours of their maintenance facilities but on this trip, only Japan Airlines had open slots. I don't recall how far in advance I had signed up for the tour but a week prior to the tour, I had received confirmation that my application was successful. Signing up for the tour required the usage of my rudimentary Japanese skills along with some Google Translate. As with this sort of thing in Japan, I applied using my hotel's address and phone number as my residence, which caused no problems.

As my tour was scheduled for 11:30, I headed out to Haneda's Terminal Two to do some planespotting prior to heading over to Japan Airlines' maintenance facilities.


Empty observation deck at Haneda's Terminal Two


NH Boeing 777-200ER JS717A. I flew her LAX - HND on my first adult trip to Tokyo over Thanksgiving in 2012.

I tend to prefer the planespotting action over at Terminal Two, which is why I was here despite going to tour Japan Airlines' maintenance facilities later in the morning. I would've taken more photographs but the zoom function on my camera at the time had stopped functioning.

The Japan Airlines Maintenance Center 1, SKY MUSEUM and hangars are located in between the southern end of Haneda's two main runways. In terms of getting there, one must take the Tokyo Monorail to the Shin-Seibijo Station, which is only served by services that make every stop.


Tokyo Monorail


Curvature


Kei Nishikori in a Japan Airlines advertisement for all you tennis fans


Rival carrier's aircraft taxiing by the station entrance

The Maintenance Center is right next to Shin-Seibijo Station


JAL Maintenance Center 1 exterior


I was here

Walking up to the building involves a security guard checking your reservations and ID to make sure you are allowed access to the building. After that, it's into the lobby for your tag and lanyard, which also indicates which classroom you'll be in today. Since one could arrive half an hour before the tour started, I made sure to be right on time so that I had extra time to enjoy the SKY MUSEUM. The Sky Museum has two main sections, one which has some exhibits explaining commercial aviation (ie, what a pilot does, what a flight attendant does, etc.) and another has memorabilia from Japan Airlines and other airlines it has acquired through the years, such as Japan Air System.


Boeing 777-200 model in the lobby


Sky Museum. The floors above are Japan Airlines offices.


DC-9 cockpit mockup


Shell Flat Neo. I flew home on the product on the right.


Galley and jumpseat

And then onto the memorabilia and more aircraft models:


Through the years


Emergency supplies for a transpolar flight


Seventies timetables


Nineties timetables. As someone who loves the first eight seasons of The Simpsons, I need that middle one.


First with the Moscow Shortcut


Cutaway model


Old tickets


Luggage tags


JAS


Inflight magazines


More seats


JAS & TDA flight attendant uniforms


Miffy/Nijntje


More models and more kawaii


Chronology of Japan Airlines


80's


90's, the decade in which I started flying on JAL


2000's and the stupid "Rising Sun" livery


Tire/tyre. I had no idea Bridgestone was a Japanese company until I was posting this photograph onto my Flickr account


Amazingly detailed 737-800 drawing. I remember texting this to a friend at the time because I was so impressed by this.

The classroom session, like everything else on the tour, was all in Japanese and lasted half an hour. It was led by a gentleman who had retired from Japan Airlines and covered some basic aviation topics, along with some things related to Haneda Airport. I was able to follow along well enough as there was also a Powerpoint presentation that accompanied it. After that, we had another half hour at the Sky Museum before we were lead out to the maintenance facility and hangars.


Classroom


View from the classroom

The tour of the maintenance facility was awesome and I really can't imagine an equivalent taking place in the States. We were taken out to the hangar directly attached to the maintenance center and then walked over to a second hangar, where we got to see the Japanese equivalent to Air Force One being backed into the hangar. Other highlights included a OneWorld liveried Boeing 767-300 and a Boeing 737-800, along with watching aircraft take off in front of us on runway 16R.

I do have quite a few photos I took of this part of the tour but attendees received an email a day later that emphasized that photos should not be posted to social media, so I've hidden all of my photos. There are certainly photographs available online but I didn't want to be the person who ruined it for everybody else.

The last point I wanted to make about the tour is that there were such a wide variety of people on the tour, which I thought was great. I've done some slightly similar things here in the States at the Boeing factories and the crowd is very much just a bunch of geeky dudes, myself included. I loved seeing the different ages of people on the tour and the gender mix was much more balanced.

If you have the slightest interest in commerical aviation (and I assume you do because you are on Flyertalk), I would highly recommend the tour.