July and August are always busy months for the area, with events ranging from the large-scale Yorkshire Wartime Experience weekend to the more specialist shows such as the Newby Hall Tractor Fest where our members provide some variety of an olive drab variety.
The Yorkshire Wartime Experience weekend continues to grow and grow in popularity, with vehicles and displays ranging from WW1 to present day, well organised with free military camping to MV owners it is a pleasure to attend it is certainly becoming a “must do” event in many member’s calendar. The Newby Hall Tractor fest is also seeing a decent growth every year, with an excellent turnout of almost 60 military vehicles in Yorkshire’s MVT allocated area, as Brian Slingsby reports great camping over for two nights. Good facilities, plenty of toilets and a huge beer tent! (what more do you need?). A good tip to event organisers, if you want good displays then if you provide good facilities you’ll get good support. In addition to static displays the organisers add a road-run into Ripon on Saturday evening, great fun, with hundreds of people lining the route to see the massive convoy of tractors of all ages and types drive into the city, parking up in the square.
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2017 is the centenary year for many of the RAF squadrons, so some of our members have been called into service to help them celebrate these anniversaries; 72
Sqdn, one of the few Battle of Britain Spitfire squadrons now based at RAF
Linton-On-Ouse held a weekend of celebrations concluding with a Hangar dance for 500+ guests had Yorkshire’s Echo 42 Big Band played all night, the band’s GMC 353 truck “Bessie” and a hand-picked selection of fine MVs and re-enactors providing a suitable drinks reception display for the guests. We were also delighted to support RAF Leeming’s families’ day with a small display next to the current RAF Regiment MV display, so a case of old and the very new.
The open invite to ‘Royal international air tattoo’ RIAT held at RAF Fairford in
Gloucestershire, a first for the MVT with our area sending a contingent of five vehicles, including the Stalwart and FV436 belonging to Nic Clay, who made a sterling effort, sending them down by low loader, which is quite a task both logistically and financially. The other
MVs were made up of three Jeeps belonging to Adrian Shorted, Clint Lord and Brain
Slingsby, well done chaps. We have a very active membership who take great efforts to attend shows all over the UK and beyond, so a big hand to them for sharing their passion and digging deep to keep rolling.
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The Croft nostalgia weekend in early August, is now established as a regular on our area calendar well organised through the Croft racing circuit by Mike Scorer, of the
Durham Tees Valley MVT, with whom we enjoy a very close partnership. Nostalgia festival is a good event with something for everybody, obviously military vehicles
( getting more in number every year ), 2017 was the eighth year for the Nostalgia festival at Croft Circuit, North Yorkshire. The event is a mix of vintage motor racing, military vehicles, classic cars and flying displays. Once again, entries were good with around 300 classic cars, 100 military vehicles and a number of aircraft displaying on the ground and in the
air, including the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster.
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The Buckerfest 2017 Fly/Drive-In at Breighton Aerodrome was supported by a
number of Yorkshire area members. This was the 3rd Buckerfest Fly-In held at Breighton Aerodrome, held every other year. It celebrates designs from the German Bucker aircraft company. Three Bucker designs were represented at the Fly-In, the Jungmann, Bestmann and
Jungmeister. Saturday started dull and showery, but slowly brightening up. By around 11:30, there was a constant stream of aircraft flying for the rest of the day, until everyone began to get ready for the hangar party. A number of military vehicles and classic cars represented the Drive-In part of the event, including several Jeeps, Land Rovers, motor bikes, a Dodge WC51, three GMC 6x6's and an M35.
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Over the weekend, there were two Bucker Bestmann aircraft present, one with the inline engine which is based there and one with flat four which was visiting. It was a rare treat to catch photos of them briefly together.
On Friday evening, before Lynne arrived, I used my powers of persuasion to get some friends to do a bit of dressing up for a 4077th M*A*S*H photoshoot beside the Bell 47 helicopter.
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Summer as we know isn’t always with sunshine!! So inside garaged and workshops; restoration projects continue with those show deadlines looming; Stuart Wright’s latest restoration is a 1943 WC63 Dodge Weapons Carrier, with its first outing at Lytham St Annes 1940s weekend. Next in line for a full restoration, is a 1941 M3A1 Autocar Halftrack – a busy winter ahead I think!
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