KARACHI, Sept 7: Japanese sailors visiting Pakistan enjoyed a day out at the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Museum on Friday admiring the 50- to 60-year-old fighter and trainer aircraft on display and little models of all the planes inducted into the PAF since 1947.

The foreigners went through photos of PAF’s legendary officers and the force’s history as they learnt the significance of Air Force Day. They were also allowed to board the Quaid-i-Azam’s Viking-1 plane, also housed by the museum.

The sailors belong to a Japanese training vessel, JSV Kashima, which is docked at Karachi for three days. The delegation, headed by Rear Admiral Hidetoschi Fuchinoue, the Commander Japanese Training Squadron, comprises 345 sailors who visited the museum in groups of 80 from 10am to 1pm when the museum is usually closed for the general public. On Fridays it usually opens after 3pm, when the Friday prayers are done.

“This delegation is on a world tour of 14 countries and Pakistan is one of them,” said PAF museum’s media affairs officer, Wing Commander Nadeem Khan. “The training vessel will travel 26,000 nautical miles in 154 days. The tour began on May 22 and will conclude on Oct 22.”

Wing Commander Khan said that the sailors visited the Mazar-i-Quaid on Thursday where Rear Admiral Fuchinoue laid a wreath to pay homage to the founder of Pakistan.

PAF vice chairman of human resources and museum Group Captain Muhammad Usman Ghani said: “Our museum is rated as one of the best in the world. We had a delegation of the Indian Air Force here a while back and the press attaché with them liked our museum so much that he went back to India to motivate the people there to buld a similar museum at the Palam Air Force Base in New Delhi.”