Duxford Air Festival

Spring Bank Holiday is the debut for the series of air displays held at Duxford, part of the Imperial War Museum.
We have not actually paid for tickets and gone onto the site for a long time, as it has been previously possible to view the planes from some byways close to the runway. Now these are always barricaded off for 'health and safety reasons', so we sprung for some tickets to attend the actual event. And it maybe worth the extra money for the atmosphere and buzz you get from being on site.
It was a beautiful day, too warm for late May but lovely to sit in the sun watching the show. It got off to a real bang with the arrival of a Typhoon which did a spectacular display to the tune of its own music.


This was followed by a display from the Harvard trainer and a pair of Strikemasters.




Then an Auster Mk6 and a real star, the Apache helicopter with a few pyrotechnics thrown in.







Another helicopter, the Augusta Bell Sioux.

The Catolina seaplane was followed by a wonderful aerobatic display by The Blades using Extra E-A 300 planes.






Always popular, the B52, Sally B made an appearance, but first we saw the Bader Bus Company display. These Piper aircraft were manouvred  by disabled pilots, hence the name.










Finally we saw the Mustang Thunderbolts and the Aerosuperbatics Wingwalkers for something a little different. I must confess we left after this, not wishing to be caught in a traffic jam on the way out.





But none of this would have been possible without the crowd, which was as interesting as the planes.
























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