Qualla: South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum

South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit allen watkin from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. The volunteers rebuild aircraft in a Bellman hangar that was already old when they started. The South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum occupies the last surviving original buildings of the wartime RAF Doncaster - a Bellman hangar, two wooden Air Ministry billet huts numbered 19 and 21, and a few smaller structures. To house the World War Two collection they added an ex Air Training Corps cadet hut beside Building 21. The contrast between the airframes inside - some painstakingly restored, some still in the slow process of becoming whole again - and the modest sheds around them is the point of the place.

Image: allen watkin from London, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum: From the Bleriot to the Vulcan

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Neil Theasby, CC BY 2.5. The collection ranges from a Bleriot XI replica - built in 2009 to commemorate the centenary of the 1909 Doncaster Aviation Meeting, the first held in England, in which the French aviator Leon Delagrange flew - to the cockpit section of an Avro Vulcan B.2, the V-bomber that defin...

Image: Neil Theasby | CC BY 2.5

South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum: The Falklands Collection

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Bjorgen, CC BY-SA 3.0. SYAM holds the largest permanent display in the UK honouring those who fought in the Falklands War of 1982, with aircraft that flew during the conflict or represent the types that did. The Westland Wessex HU.5 XS481 was transported south as an attrition replacement for the helico...

Image: David Bjorgen | CC BY-SA 3.0

South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum: Captured Argentine Aircraft

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Bjorgen, CC BY-SA 3.0. The collection includes three aircraft captured from Argentine forces. The Aermacchi MB-339 (4-A-116) is one of three taken by British forces and the only one returned to the UK; after stints at the Fleet Air Arm Museum and at Rolls-Royce in a white scheme, it has been repainted ...

Image: David Bjorgen | CC BY-SA 3.0

South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum: What a Volunteer Museum Holds

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit allen watkin from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Westland Sea King HAS.6 XV677 was transported to the Falklands aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 - the second helicopter to land on her after modifications were completed - and arrived at Port San Carlos on 2 June 1982. It flew with 825 Naval Air Squadron, was upgraded after the w...

Image: allen watkin from London, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0