Location: Reading Regional Airport, Reading, Pennsylvania

Admission: $24.00 at the gate and $12.00 for children, discounted on internet in advance, 3 day pass $60.00

Parking: free. Access is by a single, two lane road so be prepared for delays. Overall the organizers do a good job under difficult conditions. Parking is scattered about the facility with bus service  provided to the show area. Again, be prepared for long lines waiting on the buses.

The Mid Atlantic Air Museum’s 21 st Annual World War II Weekend took place in Reading, Pennsylvania on June 3, 4 and 5. This is a place where history is alive. Once you get off the bus and go through a security check you find yourself back in time, the 1940s. There is action in the air and on the ground. Re-enactors walk around in military and civilian clothing of the period. Jeeps, motorcycles, bicycles and other period equipment help the feeling of traveling in time. There are German, American and Russian camps with tents and mock fights and a French village with a café. World War II veterans can be found in the hangar, selling and autographing their memoirs, giving us a chance to meet face to face with some of the “Greatest Generation” heroes who are dwindling in numbers with passage of time.

The Manhattan Dolls provided music entertainment in the style of the Andrews Sisters in the Canteen, while a few feet away there were live radio broadcast performances at the “radio station WRDG”, bringing you back to old time radio with Abbot and Costello, the Shadow and other acts of the time on the homefront mixed with war news. On Friday and Saturday evening the main hangar turns into a dance floor for a swingfest.

Under a large open tent just outside the hangar is the Mid Atlantic Air Museum’s finest treasure, the P-61 Black Widow which is under restoration. The P-61 was recovered in New Guinea many years ago and is going to be the only flying Black Widow once the restoration is complete.

Throughout the weekend rides were being offered on some of the airplanes flying at the show. This is a once in a life time chance to fly airplanes like the B-29, B-17, SBD-5 Dauntless, SB2C-5 Helldiver, P-51D Mustang, N3N-3 Yellow Peril biplane, Pt-19 and others.

Friday is not a full flying schedule, but there is enough going on to keep you busy. Saturday and Sunday flying performances starts with a parade of liaison aircraft flying over followed by advanced trainers and Naval aircraft, fighters, bombers and transports, with individual performances by Doug Mathews P-51D “The Rebel”, FG1D Corsair “Skyboss” from the American Air Power Museum and Jim Beasley’s Spitfire Mk 18. Although not a World War II aircraft, the 1911 Curtiss-Ely Pusher replica made a few passes at the show to commemorate 100 years of Naval Aviation.

.Some of the participants were: