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The Yorkshire Air Museum sits on the site of former RAF Elvington in North Yorkshire, a World War Two airfield used extensively by Allied bomber crews during the war. It is also the home of 'The Allied Air Forces Memorial'.
The Yorkshire Air Museum & Allied Air Forces Memorial is the largest independent air museum in Britain and is the most original Second World War RAF Bomber Command station open to the public. The museum has around 50 aircraft spanning the development of aviation from 1853 up to the Tornado GR4.
History
RAF Elvington was originally a grass airfield and was completely rebuilt with three hardened runways in 1942. Handley Page Halifax four-engined bombers were operated from here by 77 Squadron RAF.
Later RAF Elvington hosted two French Air Force Squadrons which played a major part in the bomber offensive against Germany and stayed until October 1945.
Elvington became part of 40 Group Maintenance Command until 1952 when it became part of the expansion programme for US Strategic Air Command who planned to use B36 bombers to deliver their nuclear deterrent. The runway was lengthened to 1.92 miles, one of the longest in Britain, but with the advent of submarine launched "Polaris" nuclear missiles the base never became operational and it was vacated in 1958.
Blackburn Aircraft Company at Brough, near Hull, used the runway for test flying the prototype Buccaneer aircraft. Afterwards, the RAF flying training schools at Church Fenton and Linton-on-Ouse used the runway to practise circuits and landings. RAF Elvington finally closed in March 1992 and was sold by the Ministry of Defence in January 1999.
In 1983, a group started clearing the undergrowth and the site was ready to be unveiled as the Yorkshire Air Museum in 1986. The Museum's principal activity is in education and the history of flight, through which it is involved with aerospace manufacturers and organisations via its long term "Reach for the Sky" project which delivered the first KS2 History of Aviation educational resource book to all 26,000 primary schools in UK, supported by RAeS and the Ministry of Transport.
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