The first Saturday of the month means its the annual SAAF Museum Flying day,a day where some of the SAAF Museum inventory get to fly, pilots get current and a day for visitors to explore the museum from 102 years of South African Airforce history.

Air Force Base Swartkop is South Africa’s oldest air force base and houses the South African Air Force Museum as well as 17 Squadron as well as non aviation squadrons.

We go back and remember all who served the South African Airforce and who is no longer with us but some that were the driving force to the Museum as the likes of Rama “Dynamite” Iyer ,Des “Bishop” Barker ,Glen “Gringo” Warden” and Kim Pratley.

Saturday saw a bigger crowd then previous flying days, as Covid-19 restrictions start to become a lot calmer and starting to get aviation back to normality after the successful first airshow after the pandemic in the Western Cape at the Stellenbosch flying club the previous weekend.

The day started out with the rotary museum assets that being the Alouette II flown by Colonel Dave Keijer and an Alouette III flown by Colonel Billy Port.

Was good to see some of the former school master of the sky the North American Harvard flown by Martin Louw and Darryl Wright.

The Museums Kudu, both Cessna C185s made up of the rest of the tail draggers that flew during the course of Saturday.

One has to be thankful to the ground crew that keep these time pieces serviceable. Was good to see Colonel Keith Fryer as he was safety director for April’s flying day.

We looking forward to the SAAF Museum airshow and AAD later this year!

Please browse through our gallery below!