Stanko Bloudek, an engineer and innovator best known as the designer of the giant ski-flying hill in Planica, has been added to the permanent exhibition on aviation at the Lisbon Communications Museum.

The materials that are now on show permanently in Lisbon were originally part of the exhibition The Flying Man, Stanko Bloudek, created by the Technical Museum of Slovenia in 2009, 50 years after the death of the great Slovenian aviation pioneer and inventor.

That show toured Slovenia and abroad and was subsequently adapted and translated for a museum exchange with the Portuguese aviation museum, where it was on show between October 2023 and April this year.

The permanent collection now features exhibits focused on aviation and aircraft design, according to the Technical Museum.

It depicts the pioneering achievements of both Portugal and Slovenia in aviation. Bloudek and his constructions are put on show next to the achievements of Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral, who completed the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic in 1922.

Bloudek was an exceptional engineer, aircraft designer and inventor. He brought his vision of the flying man to life by constructing planes and ski jumping hills in Slovenia and abroad, says Barbara Juršič, director of the Technical Museum.

Bloudek (1880-1959) was an early aircraft pioneer and presented his first aircraft design, for a monoplane, while studying in Prague in 1910. He left aviation behind in the 1930s, after a test pilot crashed in his plane.

He later became more interested in sports and leveraged his aviation know-how to build the storied giant hill in Planica, which opened in 1934 and was in use until 2012.