The weather forecast for today was terrible with heavy rain and thundery showers predicted all day, which was not the forecast I wanted to hear as we headed over to the Yorkshire Air Museum for the annual ‘We’ll Meet Again’ weekend at the former RAF site at Elvington. Fortunately, as it turned out, the weather stayed fine and sunny all day till late afternoon, by which time we had long departed for home.

It was just after 10.00am as we arrived in the car park, several miniature model enthusiasts were flying their jet aircraft over the airfield, from a distance they looked so lifelike and superfast. It was a steady five-minute walk back to the museum entrance and after passing through the ticket office we headed over to the busy NAFFI for coffee and cake.

Suitably refreshed we made our way over to look at the old Nimrod, Hawker Hunter, Buccaneer and the freshly painted Handley Page Victor aircraft, passing several groups of Army reenactors camped on the surrounding grassland around the Control Tower,  including a Field Hospital, an Ordinance workshop and B Company 2nd East Yorks Regiment, as well as a fine selection of WW2 British and American military vehicles.  I remember from previous visits to this event how the presence of the reenactors, their tents, vehicles and associated equipment completely transform the site back to something like it must have looked during the time when it was an active air base. Leaving these post war aircraft behind always feels quite strange for me, I still get the jitters having spent many hours working on the Nimrod, not so much the Hunter but more so the Buccaneer carrying out repairs and modifications to the former and memories come flooding back to the times I spent working on them. Continuing our walk around the site the Douglas Dakota stood proudly on the tarmac, it is hard to believe that over 10,500 Dakotas were built in its heyday. They first came in to service in 1935 and continued with the RAF from 1945 onwards.  There was a short queue of inquisitive visitors waiting to climb on board, but the real star of the show was the huge Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber aircraft which was sat quietly outside on the apron in front of T Hanger. From 1943 until the end of the conflict, Halifax bomber crews flew over 75,000 missions over occupied Europe from RAF Elvington. Just over 6,000 aircraft were manufactured and it was finally withdrawn from service in Aprill 1945. Today several RAF enactors were chatting beneath the huge twin propped wings which made for some realistic photographic opportunities. We made our way into the hanger where the singer ‘Paula Marie’ was giving a performance, singing all the wartime hits to a large attentive audience as well as playing her ukulele. We continued our walk around the hanger, one of the museum volunteers gave us a fascinating account and story about the ‘Waco Hadrian Glider’ and how they carried out the restoration work. The black Tucano trainer aircraft, built by Shorts in Belfast, looked good sat in the corner of the hanger, it was used as introduction to would be RAF pilots before they could move up into the Hawk Jets. Next to the Tucano stood the powerful and noisy Lightening F6 aircraft, a single seat, twin engine, fighter interceptor aircraft. I always remember them in the early 70’s when they were flying out of RAF Leconfield. Next to that stood the GR3 Harrier a remarkable aircraft which came into its own during the Falklands war in the early 80’s. Next, we had a good look at the Sepecat Jaguar GR1, a cold war British/French supersonic jet that saw nearly forty years’ service in the RAF, and in 2026 is still in service with the Indian Airforce, one of the museums staff members actually flew this aircraft whilst in service with the RAF. 

Heading back outside we headed over to the fire station to have a look at the aircraft lined up on the peri track including the Buccaneer S2, the English Electric Canberra T4, The Fairey Gannet, Gloster Meteor F8, A Hunter T7 trainer, and the Dakota 1V. As I mentioned earlier with the Army reenactors and especially the RAF reenactors around these old aircraft it certainly generated a unique atmosphere to this well-loved Air Museum and a great day out too. The event runs from the 9th May – 10th May 2026.