Travel Log - Day 7

And now, for something completely different!

Duxford! Spitfires! Mustangs! and more!

The Flying Legends Airshow is one of the largest and most popular airshows in Britain. It takes place at IWM (Imperial War Museum) Duxford (just south of Cambridge), which has been an active air field since WWI. During WWII, it was the closest field to London, and had the first squadron of Supermarine Spitfires. This most successful fighter was designed by R.J. Mitchell, and was produced in many variants, but only just over 50 are airworthy today. There were 12 of them here (and one Hawker Hurricane)!

There was also a MK I Blenheim bomber built by Bristol:

Two Messerschmitts and a herd of Mustangs:

Here is some Spitfire action:

The Finale was the "Balbo", i.e. all the fighter planes in the show flying by. In this case, that includes them taking off in groups of three, in close succession, most of them from the grass as they would have back in the day, but that video is larger than I can upload here. So here is the finale fly-by:

There are also museum buildings for land warfare, the largest collection of American air power outside the USA, and a collection of British civil air travel, propeller driven through Concorde. You may be aware that there is a decommissioned Concorde at the Air & Space Museum in D.C., and also another at the USS Intrepid museum on the Hudson River in NYC. But this one was the prototype - the one that was used for extensive testing. It actually flew faster than the production model. Now you can pay the price at either US museum, and get somewhat close in DC, and walk through in NYC. But at Duxford, £3.00 buys an adult ticket to ALL 10 AIRCRAFT!

(You can follow the links above to see more. I didn't take photos of everything!)