My other half and I visited Duxford today, ended up joining Friends of Duxford, too as it seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually it may be worth knowing that if you spend the day in the museum and then want to become a friend afterwards, you can buy membership to FoD using your entry fee as part payment. Thus we paid £17.50 each to get in and then paid an additional £55 for joint FoD membership as we left.

Anyway, here are a few pics: we were luck that we arrived just as the yellow Gnat of the Gnat Display Team was displaying and also just as a couple of German Autogyros landed. The Yak went up soon after and there was quite a lot of action from the Catalina later on in the day.

We look forward to taking advantage of the Friends of Duxford again some time soon 🙂

IMG_4595 by sboreeves, on Flickr
Yak just about to take off

IMG_4600 by sboreeves, on Flickr
G-MOUR (XR992)

IMG_4646 by sboreeves, on Flickr
The AAM looks a lot better without any glass

IMG_4650 by sboreeves, on Flickr
Pretty sad-looking Shackleton jigsaw.

IMG_4653 by sboreeves, on Flickr
Autogyros

IMG_4677 by sboreeves, on Flickr
Catalina scattering the crows

IMG_4704 by sboreeves, on Flickr
B-24 Liberated from AAM

IMG_4757 by sboreeves, on Flickr
Catalina coming in over a pretty sad-looking Victor

IMG_4748 by sboreeves, on Flickr
Catalina

Thanks everyone for the photos on this thread, particularly Mark 12, very interesting indeed. If only we could go back in time and save a few 🙂

Sorry to hear that she’s up and away…

IMG_9669 by sboreeves, on Flickr

I look forward to seeing what replaces her at TFC. Jolly good luck to ’em I say!

Hi there,

For a general grounding in some of the people and key achievements/milestones then I can heartily recommend this (or one like it):

Reaching for the Skies

It was a TV series in the late 1980’s and the accompanying book is actually very good indeed.

Cheers…

And remind me how it would be seen when sitting on the ground? Depending on the position of the airframe relative to the walkway a lot of cocktail detail on suspended aircraft can be seen by everyone, not just the occasional VIP visitor privileged to cross the barriers and climb on the wing.

It seems that there are two arguments here:

1. Whether aircraft should be hung from the roof in museums
2. Whether it’s worth including items on a rebuild if they’re not going to be seen by the public.

On point 2, the answer surely has to be a resounding yes – who knows what the future of this airframe will be: our generation is only looking after it for the next and keeping it as complete as possible is by far the best way of doing it. Nothing is going to get unintentionally lost, mislaid, scrapped etc. if it’s in the correct location inside an aircraft.

Point 1 is something that’ll probably never be resolved, it’s a matter of opinion, practicality and taste. Yes, it wrangles with lots of us aircraft geeks but we’re a minority group among visitors to the IWM. If hanging it from the ceiling is the way to generate interest and foot-fall for other less-geeky visitors then it’s the right choice for Duxford. Even if it pains me to write it!!

With apologies to DCW for shamelessly downloading his pic and making it look old, thanks to all for keeping us updated about the Blenheim’s progress. It’s an utterly joyous thing to see it back in the air. Here’s to the 2015 display season 🙂

Is there any news on the Shackleton? I heard it had been on the move

My grandfather used to tell of a day when his regiment (the Norfolks at that time) were in Great Yarmouth some time in the first couple of years of the war and a BF109 attacked the town, apparently attempting machine gun civilians in the streets.