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I could write endlessly about what I saw and I skipped over many individual things, but if you’d like to see more photos please click here for my 125 photo album from the day.

I would like to take a moment here to talk about the re-enactors. I have some association with re-enactors who weren’t present because their representations are out of era. The people who do re-enacting put a lot of heart and soul (and cash) into their hobby.

Without these re-enactors these events would not exist. Items that would otherwise be decaying somewhere are being loved and cared for in order to be displayed for interpretation of historical events. They have a lot of information to share about what they are representing so be sure to stop and ask questions and listen to their stories.

Now for my conclusion. Admission to this event is about $30 per day and $80 for a 3 day pass. This is a lot of money to spend to attend an event but I can definitely say that this is a worthwhile expenditure to anyone who has an interest in any of a wide variety of topics from history, to aviation, to cars and trucks, and especially World War II in particular.

I was only able to stay for three hours on this day but I definitely feel like I got the value out of my money because there is so many amazing things to see in such a compact space. Unfortunately because of their decision to re-use the same website every year they delete some pages which makes going back to look for information on what you saw a bit of a pain if it is gone; but if you decide to attend next year be sure to read the “Visitor’s Tips” page when it comes back up. I am not sure if they indicated whether to print the show map or not but definitely do that.

The map is a little confusing because it isn’t North oriented nor is North represented. You can make the addition yourself by marking “General Spatz Drive” North towards Arnold Road and South towards the show. It isn’t exact but it will do the trick. Their brochure is still up as of this writing so check it out, page 1 and page 2 – you’ll get a sense of how much there is to see and do at this event. You will not regret spending the day at this amazing event which will next be held June 5th, 6th, and 7th of 2020!

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When the last vehicle on the parade rolled by I resumed my stroll along Taxiway H and looked at some more of the re-enactors and their exhibits. It was impressive how many details could be find in the display areas!

It is fascinating to look at all of the items the participants have collected to help tell the story of the corner of the war they’re doing interpretation of. If you go to this event in the future take your time and let your eyes roam around the displays!

Looming large over the crowd was the very same Douglas C-47 “Skytrain” that I had seen in flight last month at the Army Heritage Days. It can be hard to imagine how big these planes really are until you encounter one!

Another food court is in this area as well as the flea market which is quite large and could easily be considered an event of its own! Most of the stands were selling items geared towards re-enactors which included replicas, artifacts, and other items to aid in interpreting their stories. There’s also many of the usual suspects in a flea market such as T shirts and other more general apparel intended to appeal to a wider audience. The brochure says there’s more than 120 vendors and that looked to be about right to me.

Turning around again I headed back in the general direction of where I started and encountered training aircraft on the left and some German re-enactors and exhibits on my right. There was an impressive number of displays here and the biggest concentration of tanks I saw.

There is a replica of a French village in which re-enactors provide interpretation of various stages of the war from this perspective. There is a lot to see in this area!

Moving along I encountered some live music from a 1940s era group playing stringed instruments.

Towards the end of my visit a Catalina PBY flying boat was being towed towards the runway area through the crowd with a “moving fence” of staffers holding a yellow line used to keep people and the aircraft safe.

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The vehicles parade that starts on Taxiway H was called the “Liberation of Reading” and is very impressive!

The largest number of vehicles are jeeps. Looking through the photos in my album you’ll see that no two are exactly alike and shows how versatile these little vehicles were.

The next most common vehicle in the parade are bicycles of a few different makes and models.

Next most common are motorcycles, two having sidecars. One even has a trailer!

An assortment of other utility vehicles appeared in the parade as well.

A variety of interesting and unusual trucks were represented.

Even a red Navy fire truck!

And an Army half-track.

Some German vehicles participated in the parade as well.

Many more vehicles participated in the event that didn’t also participate in the parade including some tanks! Click here to see my album of more vehicles that participated in the event.

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Once I made it through ticket takers who scanned my paper ticket I saw porta johns to the left, already with a line and food options to the right. I used the former before attending to the latter. The red porta johns have a handy but too small hook which was just able to support my camera – a feature absent in most that I have seen.

There were four food areas but the one near the gate had ten stands, the 3 leftmost seemed to be together. Available was burgers, hot dogs, chicken strips, fries, ice cream, pit beef, chili dogs, root beer floats, crab cakes, pizza, funnel cakes, and stuffed pretzels. I initially set my sights on chicken strips and fries with a bottle of water. I no longer remember what that total was but when they said there was a $2 fee for credit cards I laughed and looked for a different choice.

I settled for a ham and cheese stuffed pretzel from Uncle Paul’s Stuffed Pretzels for $9 and a bottle of water for $2. They had no credit card fee. The stuffed pretzel was delicious. It had a golden brown pretzel shell with plenty of ham and cheese inside. It was so big, in fact, I could only eat about 80% of it. I made a follow up query with them on their facebook page and they responded within an hour. Friendly online and offline, I recommend checking them out if you see them.

My growling monster satisfied I looked about me to see the sights. The first things to see near the food vending area are World War II era aircraft of all description. Trainers, spotters, fighters, cargo aircraft, and bombers are all seen on the ground and in the air. In fact the entire length of the fence line facing the active runway was lined with people standing and watching the action. There were also rows of lawn chairs two and sometimes three deep that attendees had brought! There were aircraft from the show as well as traffic from the airport taking off and landing almost continually and one could spend the entire day just watching this and go home satisfied.

In this area rides on many of these wonderful aircraft can be purchased. The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum deleted the page containing information on the rides by the time I was gathering information for this blog posting. However, the Commemorative Air Force was present with many of their aircraft and their page provides information on the rides including pricing. Take a look! Other organizations also provided rides in their aircraft.

Turning around from this area I went down Taxiway G (Golf) and found several re-enactment groups with two Chinese re-enactment groups at the end. After examining the sights in this area I headed to the other side of the Taxiway looking at more vehicles, re-enactors and their various exhibits along the way.

Making my way to Taxiway D (Delta) I saw smaller aircraft that appeared to be training and spotting aircraft as well as more re-enactors and their exhibits. As I approached the intersection of Taxiway D and Taxiway H (Hotel) it was time for the vehicles parade to begin.

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Unless you want to read a lot of complaining I suggest skipping to Part 2. That’s where the fun stuff starts.

The 2019 Mid-Atlantic Air Museum‘s World War II Weekend took place over 3 days at the beginning of June at their Reading, Pennsylvania location at Reading Regional Airport. The event bills itself as “A Gathering of Warbirds” but this event is so much more than that! There’s definitely a great abundance of a variety of different kinds of military aircraft from multiple sides of World War II but there are also a large number of re-enactors representing multiple nations that participated in the conflict. There’s an amazing number of ground vehicles there as well and many of them participated in the parade (see page 3). A good number of food options and a flee market are also present.

My initial experiences arriving at this event weren’t great. I use Waze to navigate and it guided me to a route that brought me from the South of the airport. I had expected to use Waze and then follow signage, unfortunately from that direction there aren’t any signs. I was guided onto Aviation Blvd. which then becomes Lieczs Bridge Road. Waze guided me to turn onto Arnold Road which one would normally do to arrive at the museum. However, that was closed except for the shuttle buses.

I do not remember signs being there but the vehicle in front of me stopped so a passenger could hop out and cross the road to inquire with a staffer so I wasn’t the only person who was confused. Eventually the passenger returned and continued on Lieczs Bridge road. At least two property owners were charging $10 to park. I would soon regret not taking that option.

I would shortly encounter signs reading “Return to General Parking” and followed them and then discovered a sign facing only traffic coming from the opposite direction for parking (I drove past it and craned my neck to read it) at an office complex that looked more to me like a public school. That lot was full and I drove past it to another further along, also full. This event opens at 8:30 and it is now right about 9am. I had no idea where else to go so I turned around and went back to the first lot.

Fortunately a space opened up in the first lot I had encountered so I parked and walked down to the bus stop and waited. There was already a line of people waiting. As the line grew 3 groups of 2 buses passed on Van Reed road in sight of our stop during the 10 minute wait. Then 2 buses appeared at once and then a third bus appeared during boarding. I would probably need more data to call this inefficient but it didn’t look good to me.

The bus driver was courteous and ensured everyone was seated before moving. The ride to the entrance at Arnold Rd. and General Spatz Drive. was uneventful. The absence of signage would again present an inconvenience as I waited in line for several minutes while WWII aircraft flew overhead providing a hint of FOMO anxiety before a staffer called out an announcement which I could not hear but a friendly guest relayed. To my annoyance it turns out that there was a separate line for people who had already printed tickets as I had.

By the time I made it through the gates it had been about 40 minutes from the time I parked and even longer since my initial arrival to the location as I tried to figure out parking. The take-away here is arrive really early to score a parking space. It also took 30ish minutes to return to my vehicle once it was time to leave.

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Check out more of my blogs about mostly ships here! You can view my photography (more than just ships!) here and more videos here.