This weekend the Hendon Pageant will celebrate the 90th birthday of the Royal Air Force and the centenary of powered flight in Britain. Miriam Craig finds out more

Cramped seats, recycled air and the rush to bag a seat on budget airlines make the experience of air travel today less than glamorous.

But this weekend the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum in Colindale will look back to a time when it was far more unusual.

Pageants held at the site of the museum before the First World War displayed the latest aviation technology and attracted crowds of thousands.

It was from Hendon that the first ever official airmail was carried in September 1911 as part of the George V coronation celebrations, and the aerial derby held there in 1912 became as important as the Royal Ascot race meeting in the social calendar.

The Hendon Pageant this weekend will hark back to events held in those early days. Aviation historian and head of access and learning at the museum David Keen says: "The pageants were huge occasions with massive crowds and royal patronage. We've revived it as a way of making the museum's collection more accessible to people."

The first pageant was held in 1910 by Claude Grahame-White, the aviation pioneer who founded the London Aerodrome that year on the site of what is now the RAF Museum.

In 1914, he gave the site to the government and it was taken over by a branch of the navy and used for the defence of London. Then after the First World War, it became RAF Hendon and was the site of pageants in the Twenties and Thirties.

Mr Keen says: "We're trying to revive something of the spirit they had back then. We're hoping children will come dressed up in Edwardian clothes and that they'll learn something of the early history of aeroplanes by looking at the aircraft here. Planes are exciting, dynamic things and we have more than a hundred of them here at the museum."

Activites at the pageant will include an Edwardian funfair, with helter skelter slide, swing boats and carousel, prizes for the best dressed Edwardian family, and a hat-making competition. Visitors will be able to talk to re-enactors dressed as First World War aces and be guided around the museum by Edwardian ladies and gentlemen.

Even Colindale Tube station will be joining in the celebrations with period decorations and uniforms for staff. And on Saturday at 1pm, five Second World War planes, a Lancaster, two Hurricanes and two Spitfires, will do a fly-past.

As Mr Keen says, the development of aeroplanes has affected more than just the ability to go on convenient city breaks: "The contribition the RAF has made to the defence of this country is unmatched. Its history is much shorter than that of the army or navy, but it's equally as honourable."

The Hendon Pageant takes place at the museum in Grahame Park Way, on Saturday and Sunday, from 10am to 5pm. Entry is free. For more information about the event, call 020 8205 2266.