Doncaster museum exhibition on early aviation

Take a flight of fancy and check out a new exhibition which is now on display in Doncaster.
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‘Early Aviation’ can now be viewed at South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum, and was officially opened by Mr Ken Ellis, renowned aviation author and expert on the ‘Pou de ciel’, Flying Flea, which is one of the aircraft displayed at the facility.

Museum chairman Alan Beattie said: “The display is sited in the large room in the Second World War building which has been restored by museum volunteers from a more or less derelict condition.”

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The formal launch included an introduction to the enhanced ‘Falklands Display’, created for the 35th Anniversary of the Falklands War in 1982, and an opportunity to see how the museum has progressed over recent years.

The South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum moved to the Aeroventure site in 1999 from its long term home in Firbeck when the last remaining buildings from the former RAF Doncaster were vacated by Yorkshire Water.

The site opened as a civil airport in the 1930s with the museum’s buildings constructed in 1938 by the RAF with the Second World War imminent.

While the airfield continued to be used by the RAF and later civilian operators following the war the Aeroventure site was fenced off from the airport site to be used as a water board depot.

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While the rest of the airfield site was re-developed into what is now the Lakeside development the water board continued to use their depot until the late 1990’s.

When Yorkshire Water left the site it was too good an opportunity to miss and the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum moved in.

The museum is a registered charity and also a member of the British Aviation Preservation Council.