The foundations of the Aeronautical Department of the then Technical Museum for the Czech Kingdom were laid by Gustav Viktor Finger in 1910. From this point of view, the aviation collection is one of the first ever created worldwide. The oldest exhibition contained 120 objects that were the private property of Gustav Finger. Later, the owner transferred them to the museum's collections. The first motorized aeroplane was donated to the collection on 28 November 1913 by Jan Kašpar himself. It was an aircraft of his own design, which was based on Blériot XI type of aircraft, referred to as the JK type of Blériot system.
Some of the most significant acquisitions at the very end of the First World War were the torso of the fuselage of the Hansa-Brandenburg D.I fighter plane and right after the end of this global conflict the acquisition of the Knoller C II plane, which was donated to the museum by the Czechoslovak Army (Air Corps) as early as 1919. The latter is the only surviving example of this aircraft in the world.
After the death of Gustav Finger in 1919, no one could be found for a long time who could fully devote themselves to the development of the aviation collection. Aviation experts and designers such as Pavel Beneš, who collaborated with the museum, were busy with work in the aviation industry, and could not devote themselves fully to the expansion of the collection. The aviation collection practically did not grow. In the twenty years between 1910 and 1930, it was possible to increase the number of inventoried items in the collection items from 120 to only 186.
A fundamental change occurred with the arrival of Vladimír Karmazín in 1935. A year later, Rudolf Rumples, a pioneer of ballooning in Czechoslovakia, also began to help him. The latter literally pulled off a daring feat when, as a lawyer, he realized that the remains of the Kysibelka balloon, which crashed in 1891, might still be stored among the items in the courthouse. His suspicions were confirmed, he acquired the remains of the balloon and donated it to the National Technical Museum.
The aviation collection was significantly strengthened shortly after the occupation of the country in March 1939, when two unique aircraft from the then Liberation Memorial in Prague's Vítkov were added to it out of fear of their destruction by the Nazis. The Anatra Anasal and LWF Model V Tractor aircraft, apart from those already mentioned, cannot be found in any other museum in the world.
The NTM transportation hall underwent a major renovation at the end of the 1970s and had to wait almost a quarter of a century for the next one. From September 2006 to February 2011, the entire museum underwent an extensive renovation, during which all of the suspended aircraft were carefully restored and all of the aircraft engines from the aviation collection were cleaned. In addition to the already mentioned aircraft, the other jewels of the collection are the Zanonia motor glider, the Avia BH-9 and Avia BH-10 aircraft, the Racek and Praha gliders from the First Republic, the Šimůnek brothers' Kuňkadlo, the Praha balloon, the motorized gondola for the K-type observation balloon, the Zlín Z-XIII and the Zlín Z-50 aircraft, the record-breaking Sokol M-1C sport and training plane, the only series-produced helicopter in the Czech Republic, the HC-102, or the pinnacle of the Czechoslovak design school, and the most produced airplane in Czechoslovakia, the Aero L-39C Albatros. The depositary still contains among others, the K-65 Čáp, Zlín Z-381, Piper L-4H, Nebeská blecha and a number of gliders. Currently, the collection contributes approximately three percent to the NTM’s overall holdings.
From the point of view of Czech history, it is difficult to name the most important exhibits of the collection. Undoubtedly, among the historically most important ones belong Jan Kašpar's JK Blériot system aircraft and the second Czech Prague balloon, from whose basket the first aerial photographs of Prague and its surroundings, including Kladno, were taken in September 1905 and May 1906. Some of them have been preserved as "luminous images" (stereoscopic slides) in the NTM Archive.