Warbirds at Duxford, Part 2

Well, where were we. Ah yes a promise of Spitfires! Well a few other things first. I have to apologise for the gloomy pictures, as I said the weather for the later afternoon wasn't good, so I have had to edit the photos a fair bit to brighten them up so that some detail can be seen. Anyway here we go........

I'll start this part with what they called the Bristol Mercury Section of the display, that means that the four aircraft displaying are all powered by Bristol Mercury engines:
We have a Gloster Gladiator, two Westland Lysanders and a Bristol Blemheim.

 The Lysanders,

 Bristol Blenheim

and the Gloster Gladiator.

Now back to US built for a Naval Aviation Section,
Firstly the Grumman Wildcat, called the Martlet when flown by the Royal Navy!

and the fabulous Consolidated Catalina:

The weather was certainly suitable at times for a flying boat.

Staying with the US we then had a Boeing Stearman followed by two Harvards a Yale and a Valiant. These are training aircraft that many of our pilots training in Canada during WWII would have learnt in:
The Stearman,

and the others,
a Harvard in Portugese Air Force Colours,

and a Harvard in RAF colours,

the Yale,

and the Valiant

So from the US, we move to what was the USSR...... in the form of two Yak fighters,
a Yak-9

 and a Yak-3

Let me know if you can spot the difference.

Now it's Spitfire Time as promised in my first Duxford post.

Sixteen Spitfires took to the grey skies,  in twos and threes as they would have done, 79 years ago! Fifteen went away to form up for the display, while one gave us a fantastic solo display.

This is a Spitfire Mk.I Serial number N3200, it took off from Duxford on 26th May 1940 on its first combat mission, with the rest of 19 Squadron, flown by Geoffrey Stephenson, to cover the withdrawl of our troops from Dunkirk. After shooting down a Junkers 87 Stuka, it was in turn shot down and crash landed on a beach near Sangatte. Geoffrey was captured, ending up in the infamous Colditz Castle. (Stalag Luft III).

In 1986 it was rediscovered, excavated and the long restoration commenced, returning to the air in 2014 from Duxford. Completing a long circle over time.

While N3200 was displaying the others were forming up in the murky distance,

before sweeping in from the left, a diamond nine, followed by two vics of three.

It was brilliant!

After a great display 13 of the Spitfires broke formation and landed one after the other, (I won't do all 13!)

This left two Spitfires to do final solo displays, the first was Spitfire Mk.IX, serial MH434, I have a huge soft spot for this aircraft, as it is the very first Spitfire that I saw back in 1972 at the now sadly defunct Halfpenny Green Air Show. (Halfpenny Green or Bobbington, sometimes known under the grand name of Wolverhampton Business Airport) Anyway here it is:

Then lastly a Griffon engined Spitfire Mk.XVIII, serial SM845:

And a final fly by:

So I hope you liked what I put together.
TTFN

Warbirds at Duxford, Part 1

Thanks to my great kids, who bought us tickets for my birthday, for the Duxford Battle of Britain Air Display last weekend. It was a great if sometimes very wet Sunday, with lots to see.

Kicking off with a re-enactment from the 1969 film the Battle of Britain.... well what would a re-enactment be without a few Messerchmitt Me-109s:

Actually post war Spanish built Me-109s (Hispano HA-1112 Buchon, for those that are interested)

Of course these can't be allowed to roam the skies unchallenged so, 4 Hurricanes and three Spitfire Mk 1s were "scrambled".

So after a bit of a dogfight, two Me-109s were chased off and two "shot down"!

This was followed by two aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight;

The mighty Lancaster:

and a Spitfire PR XIX in D-Day Stripes as were a lot of the aircraft, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings.

Basically the invasion stripes were added to all allied aircraft operating over France on D-Day and for a while afterwards, so that our ground forces wouldn't shoot at them and prevent "Blue on Blue" casualties!

A change of pace after this back to World War I....
Two SE 5s

 A Fokker Triplane, chasing a Sopwith Triplane,

 Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2,

 Sopwith Triplane,

 Two Fokker Dr.1s (Triplane)

 SE5a

This time the Germans seem to get the upper hand in the dogfights!

After some glorious sunshine the weather now started to become overcast as three Hawker Furies taxied out to display..

The Fury was our last piston engine fighter, coming after WW II and seeing service in the Korean War, where one actually shot down a Mig-15 Jet, one of which was at the show, but didn't display as the weather for its scheduled slot was too bad, it was actually torrential, but here's a photo of it:

It's actually painted as the Mig-15 flown by Yuri Gagarin, before he ventured into space.

So following the Hawker Furies, we turned to the U.S. with a display from a B-17 Flying Fortress  and A P-47 Thunderbolt, the B-17 known as Sally B, is painted up on one side as the famous Memphis Belle. Sally B is the actual B-17 that "played" Memphis Belle in the 1990 Film.

and the P-47....

This P-47D was built in 1945 and never saw action, it was later sold to the Peruvian Air Force.

Staying with the U.S we then had four P-51D Mustangs;

The weather was really poor now, so two of the Mustangs landed, leaving just two to display.

I think that's enough for one post. If I get time I will do part 2 tomorrow. Where you might see photos of a formation of 15 Spitfires! To whet your appetite, here's just some of them on the ground.