This weekend vintage vessels aren't only docked in the Halifax Harbour for the Tall Ships Festival, a fleet of historic vintage planes have touched down at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport.

The yellow planes are part of a Vintage Wings of Canada exhibition now touring the Maritimes. They're trying to spread the message of a little-known moment in Canada's history: the World War II British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Hundreds of thousands of aviators from Canada, the British Commonwealth, and the U.S., were trained in the effort to win the war. Many airstrips around the Maritimes were built specifically for these planes and the training they did in the early 1940s.

The fleet, including a Fleet Finch, Tiger Moth and the North American Harvard, were all used to train pilots during the Second World War.

Mark Peapell, with the Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum, said most of these aircraft flew across Atlantic Canada 70 years ago

"The Harvards were based in P.E.I. Stanley (N.S.) based the Tiger Moths and the Fleet Finches and the Cornells were flown in New Brunswick as well. So we've got representative aircraft that were flown across Atlantic Canada during the war," he said.

"They're shining examples of what we have here today," he said.

The planes visted Fredericton earlier this week and will continue their tour of the Maritimes over the next two months.

People will be able to visit the planes in Halifax over the weekend. There will even be opportunities to go up in the planes.