Families and friends gather for SAAF Museum Training Day

The South African Air Force (SAAF) Museum hosted its Training Day event this past Saturday at the Swartkops Airforce Base in Centurion.

Due to poor weather conditions and low visibility, no flying took place on the day and even though overcast clouds grounded the aircraft, this didn’t deter the hundreds of residents from showing up to support the museum.

Families, friends, and generals of old and new visited the museum for a fun day out and to fully appreciate the richness of the country’s military and aviation history.

The museum is open Mondays to Fridays from 09:00-15:00 and Saturdays from 08:30-13:00 and events such as these help raise funds.

The Training Day builds up to the museum’s annual Wings of Legacy Swartkop Museum Airshow on May 3.

Deon Ferdinand Coetzee is a director of the Buccaneer Restoration Fund, one of the vendors at the Training Day.

He is hopeful that their restoration project will come to completion by the end of the year.

“The project is doing very well. We’ve actually got an invitation from Kyknet, they want to do a documentary on the project, so hopefully that will help get some more funds in. We’re looking to finish at the end of 2025,” Coetzee said.

Coetzee said the documentary is set to be released around October.

“I hope people will be able to see that there are passionate people looking after our old aircraft. Some people really put their time into this, so we hope the people can see that everything here is safe, we’re looking after it.”

He said they hope to have the restored Buccaneer on display at the museum’s Shackleton Shelter by February 2026.

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