G & J away from home

Saturday, 23 May

Not only did we go to an airshow at Duxford, but it's Dad's 77th birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Sharon and Dave had emailed and suggested a number of things we could do while staying with them and one of them was the air show at Imperial War Museum Duxford. Visiting Duxford was already on our list of things to do so we leapt at the opportunity to see their VE Day anniversary air show as well.

We arrived nice and early and the ticketing at the gates was very organised, with the parking close in to the airfield.

Arriving at the air show

As the admission to the air show included admission to the hangars we spent the first couple of hours looking around the hangars - and the stalls which lined the road for the air show.  (Mostly aviation themed stalls, but not entirely.  And food stalls - there were about a million!)

In the hangar

One of the highlights was the number of people involved in re-enacting the 1940s war years - they were wandering among the crowd and also in one area where a number of groups were showing different aspects of the war years.  There was live music suitable to the era as well.  Dave got this great shot:

Dave's photo of the 1940s re-enactment

We wandered back to the car to have lunch and grab our chairs to get settled in before the 2pm start of the flying display.  We had made sandwiches that morning and here's Gary playing with his food:

Lunch break

 The air show kicked off with a Eurofighter Typhoon display - very loud, and I worried mostly about the crows who were finding it hard to figure out which was they should fly to get to safety.

After the noise died down we settled down to watch the quieter displays of aircraft from earlier times. After having had bitterly cold wind for most of the morning the sun was starting to peep through the clouds - not much, but enough that Sharon was able to catch a little snooze.

Exciting stuff (for some)

My photo-taking was pretty awful (hand-eye coordination required, even with the slowest aircraft) but I did get a couple of lucky shots - and at least I was facing the right way!

Gary and Dave

 Dave took this photo during the excellent Catalina display:

Dave's photo of the Catalina

And my only real success was this photo of the Dominie (or Dragon Rapide) - at least I think that's what it is.

My photo of the Dragon Rapide / Dominie

One of the best displays was from the Storch - a unbelievably slow German aircraft which dawdled around the sky and still eluded my camera!

Here's a list of the planes we (probably) saw, taken from the programme:

• Bristol F2B Fighter
• Nieuport 17
• Royal Aircraft Factory BE2e

• Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship
• Beech D17S Staggerwing
• Spartan Executive
• Hawker Nimrod or Hawker Fury
• Gloster Gladiator

• Bristol Blenheim
• Supermarine Spitfire Ia
• Hawker Hurricane

• Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Sally B

• Douglas Dakota
• Fairey Swordfish
• de Havilland Dragon Rapide
• Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina
• Piper L-4 Cub
• Auster Autocrat
• Fieseler Fi 156 Storch
• Yakovlev Yak-3

• Eurofighter Typhoon
• Westland Sea King
• de Havilland Canada Beaver
• LeVier Cosmic Wind
• Gloster Meteor T7

• Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Sally B
• Douglas C-47 Skytrain
• Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina
• North American P-51D Mustang
• North American TF-51D Mustang
• North American P-51D Mustang
• Goodyear FG-1D Corsair
• Grumman FM-2 Wildcat
• Curtiss P-40F Warhawk
• Curtiss P-40C Tomahawk