MAAM WWII Weekend June 2019 Part 1

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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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