On the 12th September we officially opened the museum's flight simulator room.

Side view showing how close the replica is to the original

Centenary Of the First Flying Meeting in Britain October 15th to 25th October 1909

A full size "model reproduction" of a Bleriot XI has been built for The South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum to celebrate the "The First Flying Meeting In England" as the programme of the event declared, which was held at Doncaster Racecourse from the 15th to 25th October 1909.

Front view showing the rotary engine

The Museum's Bleriot is not all reproduction though as it is fitted with an original 80 HP Gnome Rotary engine, quite an unusual version of this famous engine as it has split crank case. It is not quite complete, missing the carburettor and Magneto assemblies and has kindly been loaned to us by the The Ulster Aviation Museum, the propeller is also a period original but of unknown type.

The Bleriot will be finished in the markings of Leon Delegrange who won the speed event by completing a lap of the course setting a new speed record (without justification) of 49.9 mph. The wings are currently being built by Ken Fern and will be fitted in the near future.

Research has just resulted in discovering that on the aircraft flown by Leon Delagrange the Gnome engine was fitted in front of the propellor resulting in a rather strange appearance due probably to the fact that he fitted the Gnome in the field and found as we did it would not fit inside the dimensions of the standard Anzani powered airframe without modification.

SAMA 82 members with museum members and Forces 80

Aeroventure hosted SAMA 82 for the August bank holiday weekend.

Looking a bit better after a good scrub

Phil, John, Bill and Jim cleaning up our Hawker Hunter and surrounding area.

Delegrange's Bleriot at the October 1909 meeting in Doncaster

A replica of the Bleriot XI that won the speed trial at Britain’s first ever aviation meeting is nearing completion.

The Bleriot is expected to form the focus of a number of celebrations taking place in Doncaster to mark the centenary of the Doncaster aviation meeting in October 1909 in which Frenchman Leon Delegrange achieved a speed of 49.9 mph, watched by a crowd of at least 100,000.

Begun in May 2008, the Bleriot is being built for Doncaster’s South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum by wooden aircraft specialist Ken Fern from original drawings. The major challenge was the time consuming construction methods used by Bleriot in 1909 in comparison to the later simplified construction techniques that were later adopted for aircraft mass production during the First World War.

The museum hopes to have a non-working 80 hp Gnome engine installed in time for the October unveiling. Missing parts, including the crank shaft and a cylinder head, are being fabricated by the engineering workshops at the Shuttleworth Trust. The undercarriage assembly has been delivered ready for assembly and the museum has found a suitable propeller from its collection to mount on the engine.

Keelan Owen cutting the ribbon at the official opening with SYAM chairman Frank Donnelly

The opening of the re-located Sheffield Blitz diorama took place at Aeroventure on Saturday 7th March, 2009. The ribbon cutting ceremony was carried out by Keelan Owen and South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum Chairman, Mr Frank Donnelly. Keelan is the son of Mr Jon Owen who kindly supplied the safety glazing for this display.

The exhibition was constructed by members of the museum volunteer staff over the past six months.

The scene depicts the street outside C&A clothing shop on High Street Sheffield, on the morning of 14 December 1940, after the all night bombing of the city by the German Airforce during the Second World War.

Visitors attending the opening ceremony included Mrs Freda Jarvis (nee Haigh), who was a child in 1940 and remembers her school, Mundela Place School, in Norton being destroyed on that night by a land mine. She later returned to the ruins of the school and recovered her own bible from her wrecked school desk, which she treasures to this day. Another visitor present at the ceremony was Mrs Helen Stimpson, who also recalls bombs falling on Eckington golf course around the same time. The events of war time bombing are still very much in living memory of many local people, including SYAM Chairman Frank Donnelly, whose father was a doctor in Sheffield during the war. On the 14th March 1941 he lost approximately 35 of his patients to the bombing, when two parachute mines fell on Southey Hill, and Kyle Crescent.

A memorial list commemorating the victims who perished in Sheffield during the war, can be viewed near the entrance to this exhibition.

Three of the museum's five resident Canberra cockpits

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first flight of the English Electric Canberra Bomber the museum is holding a special Canberra weekend on the 16th and 17th May.