Tag Archives: Cessna 185
SAAF Museum Flying Day April 2023
There was no time for jokes on the April edition of the SAAF Museum Flying day at Mobile Deployment Wing Swartkop.The now Mobile Deployment Wing known as MDW, was the old Snake Valley, then Swartkop Airfield which then fell under AFB Waterkloof after the base was disbanded.
This was the final flying day to be held before the SAAF Museum Airshow on 6th May 2023,where the public will be able to see both current and museum aircraft of the South African Air force, as well as civilian display teams!
The friends of the South African Air force museum had refreshments on sale as well as as giving guided tours to visitors. The SAAF Museum Spitfire restoration also had memorabilia on sale and were able to show you the restoration progress on the museum spitfire and newly built hangar. The team at the Buccaneer 421 restoration also allowed visitors to sit in the cockpit of the buccaneer.
From the flying exhibits we saw the Museums Cessna C185,Bosbok and brighly coloured Siyandiza Harvard from the fixed wings.
Rotary Museum flying exhibits had the Aerospatiale Puma Helicopter, Alouette II and Alouette III. One of the other Museum Alouette III departed for Nasrec near Johannesburg, where it will be on static display during the duration of the Rand Easter show from Thursday, April 6th, 2023 – Monday, April 10, 2023.We also had a surprise fly-past by a Aerospatiale SA 315B Lama a French single-engine helicopter developed to meet hot and high operational requirements.
We look forward to seeing you all at the SAAF Museum Airshow 6th May 2023.
For now keep them up where they belong
SAAF Museum Flying Day May 2022
And so we were already into the May edition of the South African Airforce Museum Flying day at Airforce Base Swartkop in the city of Tshwane.
The flying days at the SAAF Museum are to keep some of the flying exhibits airworthy, keeping pilots currents, generating funds to keep the museum ongoing and encourage the public to visit the museum and grasp the 102 years of SAAF airpower.
This months flying day was definitely a busy one with a number of public visitors and a number of aircraft flying. The base Officer Commanding Lieutenant Colonel Trish Schoeman, Major Ntshangase and all the faces behind them can be very proud of the Base and the behind the scene people including the friends of the Museum.
Flying day safety director Lieutenant Colonel Keith “Fulcrum” Fryer. Colonel Fryer also provided some good commentary during the morning on each of the aircraft both flying and static.
The flying started at 9am with the rotary exhibits, that being the Alouette II and Alouette III flown by various helicopter museum pilots that being Lieutenant Colonel Billy Port, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Keijer and General Piet Burger.
The sounds of Lycoming engines that were a familiar hum over the field, by two Cessna C185s, two Bosboks and the single Kudu.
Three of the handful of Harvard’s flew including the most well known Harvard that was in SAAF service, that being 7111 known as “Nelson”.
It was great to see the de Haviland Vampire T55 that soaked up the basking sun and the museum ground crew did a engine run providing the photographers with a wet start flame as she whistled to life.
A word of thanks goes to the ground crew that keep the exhibits in airworthy condition. We are sure we will have a number of SAAF Museum aircraft that will take part in the AAD airshow in September this year!
