Juan Sánchez Vidal (born January 3, 1958) is a
model aircraft collector. Sánchez Vidal, born in the
Palma de Mallorca
Palma (; ; also known as ''Palma de Mallorca'', officially between 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...
, has over one thousand commercial
airline
An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...
models, a collection which many experts believe to be the largest aircraft collection in the world.
Life and hobby
Sánchez Vidal was born near
Son Bonet.
At the age of fifteen, Sánchez Vidal began working at
Son Sant Joan Airport
Palma de Mallorca Airport ( ca, Aeroport de Palma de Mallorca, es, link=no, Aeropuerto de Palma de Mallorca; ; also known as Son Sant Joan Airport or ''Aeroport de Son Sant Joan'') is an international airport located east of Palma, Mallorca, ...
. He retired from that job in 2020.
Sánchez Vidal began working with defunct
Spanish airline
Spantax
Spantax S.A. was a Spanish leisure airline headquartered in Madrid that operated from 6 October 1959 to 29 March 1988. Spantax was one of the first Spanish airlines to operate tourist charter flights between European and North American cities and ...
, acquiring his first model, a
Convair CV-990 of that airline, in 1973. He made friendships with co-workers of other airlines, and he began receiving more models.
Rodolfo Bay, then president of Spantax, personally gave Sánchez Vidal an airplane model.
Eventually, his hobby led him to meet some more airline personalities, some of them famous celebrities, like
Niki Lauda,
Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
champion and owner of
Lauda Air. The largest model in his collection, a model of an
Air France
Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global air ...
Airbus A320
The Airbus A320 family is a series of Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus.
The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air F ...
, was obtained after he traded one of his planes with a local Air France worker who also collected models. He also made a
McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produ ...
MD-11 model of
Air Europa, airline for which he then worked. Air Europa never actually used this type of aircraft in real life.
He also has models of
American Airlines
American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...
'
Boeing 757
The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor for the 727 (a trijet), received its first orders in August 1978.
The prototype completed its mai ...
and
Boeing 767
The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...
, the same type of aircraft used for the
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
.
Sánchez Vidal and his collection have been the objects of many reports and interviews by many specialized magazines.
In 2000, personnel at
Barajas International Airport
Barajas may refer to:
*Barajas (Madrid), the district of Madrid in which the airport lies
** Barajas (Madrid Metro), station along Line 8 of the Madrid Metro
**Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, principal airport of Madrid, Spain
*Barajas (a ...
in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
negotiated with Sánchez Vidal so that he could display his collection at the international arrivals terminal of that airport. In March of that year, his collection began being showcased at that airport. The collection lasted there until 2003. He had also held an exhibition of his models at Son Sant Joan Airport, in 1987.
Sanchez Vidal is fluent in
Spanish and
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
.
[Archived a]
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine
See also
*
List of Spaniards
References
External links
Sánchez Vidal interviewed (In Spanish) on Coleccionismo magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanchez Vidal, Juan
1958 births
Living people
Model aircraft
Spanish collectors