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.