WWII Weekend at Mid Atlantic Air Museum

Every year the Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania holds a World War II weekend. It includes lots of period warbirds and vehicles. There are French, German and American encampments and even a village in which the Germans stage an assault with armored vehicles, pictured above.

There are WWII vets, including some of the Band of Brothers, authors and pilots. My son, Sean, is a big WWII buff, so we decided to go this year. It is located at Reading Airport (RDG). This is only a 12 minute flight from our home base. I checked and found that the airport would be open to traffic before and after the air show, a la Oshkosh. However, I checked the weather, which was extremely questionable after noon. We decided to drive the 40 minutes instead.

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There were large encampments with lots of re-enactors.

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Sean gets checked out by an actual B29 bombardier on a working Norden bomb sight.

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A gorgeous Mustang. Just the sound of these things doing low passes is getting me worked up for Oshkosh. (49 days to go!) My wife always looks at me like I'm an idiot when I start counting down the days.

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The Riley family as nose art on a bomber. I'm going to try this trick at Oshkosh for a frameable picture.

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Sean gets put through the obstacle course by a drill instructor. This guy was really into it. "Sunglasses!!??? What are you, some kind of movie star???? Get those off and give me 20!"


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We had just made it down to the flea market when the PA system announced that everyone should immediately, but calmly, seek shelter.  A huge storm then hit with heavy rain, wind and hail. Luckily, we were next to the bus depot and hopped on a school bus just as it started. Great timing and I was really glad we hadn't flown in.

We had a good morning and would definitely recommend checking out this show next year. Just Google Mid Atlantic Air Museum World War II Weekend.

I also stopped out to the hangar this weekend and did some maintenance on the plane. In a week or two, I'll start organizing things for Oshkosh. I have already downloaded the NOTAM and am trying to organize a mini group arrival of Velocities. We'll see how that shapes up.


I was at an Eastern Mountain Sports store looking for light weight chairs for the show. I am bringing the whole family this time, so weight is more of a concern. I found some on sale. The funny part is that the only two colors left  exactly match the paint scheme of the plane. Little things like this really make me happy. I couldn't have had better seats custom made. Again, she thinks I'm a simpleton, but I'm tickled.

More to come.

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