The Yorkshire Air Museum is bidding for Heritage Lottery cash for a £1.5 million expansion. STEPHEN LEWIS went behind the scenes at the museum.


MINISTRY of War, says the dun-coloured sign on the metal airfield gates. “This is a prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act 1911. Unauthorised persons entering the area will be arrested and prosecuted.”

They won't, of course, because this is the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington, which positively encourages visits from unauthorised persons. But the sign is just one of the many touches which make this wonderful museum feel so authentic.

Drive through the gates, and you reach a sign telling you to stop! next to a long, military-style hut. It is almost like going into Imphal barracks – except that you are paying your entry fee rather than passing through a security check.

Beyond the barriers you find yourself on an authentic wartime air base. Nissan huts are scattered around, housing the NAAFI and the officers’ mess. Aircraft crouch on the asphalt, looking ready for take-off. You almost expect to hear the wail of an air raid siren, and to see gog-gle-wearing aircrew rush out of the huts to climb into the waiting planes.

There is a simple reason why it seems so authentic. From 1942 until the end of the war, this was an operational airbase. The RAF's 77 Squadron, which played a vital part in the Battle of the Ruhr and the attempt to destroy German industry, was based here until 1944. The squadron lost almost 80 Halifax bombers during the hostilities, with more than 500 aircrew killed, missing or taken prisoner. From 1944 onwards, meanwhile, when 77 Squadron moved out, RAF Elvington was home to two French squadrons, No 346 (Guyenne) and No 347 (Tunisie), which played a major part in the bomber offen-sive that supported D-Day.

The museum today is very much a living memorial to the airmen, both British and French, who gave their lives in the war, says museum spokesman Ian Richardson.

But it is far more than “simply” a Second World War museum. What makes this place unique, says Ian, is its simultaneous focus on aviation history. “We’re probably the only museum which covers aviation history from the earliest pioneering designs right up to supersonic jets.”

Pride of place in the museum’s main hangar is given to a reconstructed Second World War Halifax bomber. The 26-foot-long fuselage was used as a chicken coop by a farmer for 40 years before the museum acquired it. The aircraft has been painstakingly rebuilt around it. “And now it is the only one in the world where surviving aircrew can go inside and relive their memories,” Ian says.

More impressive even than this, how-ever, is the oddly batlike contraption that hangs amid other early aircraft at the far end of the hangar. It looks like a rowing boat on wheels supported beneath a giant hang-glider. And in its way it is as significant as the Apollo space-craft which took the first men to the moon.

This is a full-size, working replica of Yorkshireman Sir George Cayley’s “gov-ernable parachute” which, in 1853, became the first heavier-than-air ma-chine in history to carry a human being into the skies.

Cayley’s importance cannot be over-stated, Ian says. “Throughout history, designers and inventors had tried to de-velop ways to fly,” he says, looking up at the strangely beautiful machine. The great Leonardo Da Vinci tried, and failed. Yet in 1808 Cayley, a wealthy Yorkshireman whose family seat was at Brompton Dale in the North York Moors, discovered the principle of lift, and the secret of the aerofoil.

Just over 40 years later, in 1849, a ten-year-old boy flew in a Cayley triplane glider at Brompton Dale. There is no official record of that: but there is of the historic flight that took place in 1853, when Cayley’s coachman flew across the Dale. “He promptly resigned, saying he was hired to drive, not to fly,” Ian says.

Fifty years later, the Wright brothers ac-knowledged Cayley's importance when they made the first powered, heavier-than-air flight in their Wright Glider.

Elvington has a full-scale replica of the Wright Glider, too – and a replica of the Blackburn monoplane, a single-seat air-craft built by Yorkshireman Robert Blackburn and flown in 1909.

None can be displayed to full advantage, however – because the main hangar at Elvington is becoming crowded.

In 1999 when he joined the museum, says Ian, it had only 17 aircraft. Now there are 43, and counting.

The museum desperately needs to ex-pand. It already has planning permission for a second big hangar, next to the exist-ing one. Now it has lodged a bid for Heritage Lottery cash to make the expansion possible.

The new hangar will allow for a proper aviation pioneers” exhibition, meaning the museum can make the most of Yorkshire’s rich aviation heritage. It will also give more room for events, and more flexibility to change exhibitions around, Ian says.

The new hangar will be built on scrub-land next to the existing hangar. And as part of the proposals, there is also to be a butterfly conservation area on another piece of scrubland. Butterflies? “It is something different – but also has a connection to flight!” Ian says.


Museum appeal

The museum puts the cost of its expansion plans at £1.5 million. At least half of that it hopes will come from the Heritage Lottery Fund, for which a bid has already been submitted. The remainder will have to be raised by the museum itself. A major fundraising campaign is to be launched. The museum will be looking for corporate sponsorship, as well as individual donations.

* If you want to make a donation, phone 01904 608595.