The first weekend in October saw my final two airshows of the season - Duxford on the Saturday with their "Flying Finale" and Shuttleworth's "Race Day" show the following day. I enjoy both these shows - Duxford often offers a final chance to see the RAF Red Arrows and Typhoon Display with this year being no exception, and Shuttleworth also always seem to pull out the stops for their shows, so it is nice to have that as a "last show of the season".
There were four of us for Duxford - Adam, Mark W and me, plus my pal Tim who had come all the way down from Yorkshire for the show. The Reds also had a tent and the pilots were attending the show on the ground in the morning so I bumped into a number of pals around the tent, including several people who had been at our incredible Waddington visit a couple of weeks ago. Caz and I grabbed a chance for a selfie with outgoing Red 1 Jon Bond…
...and I also had a nice chat with Reds PR Manager Andy - having not seen him all season it was funny to see him twice in just over a fortnight! Lovely to see the boys one last time for the season too.
As well as a nice Reds display, we also had the usual Duxford massed warbirds, a Typhoon display where he found an astonishing amount of vapour in the air, and plenty of other assorted WW2 era aircraft including the not that often seen P-40 Warhawk and the Hawker Nimrod Mk 1. Not the longest of displays, but still good viewing, although as always with Duxford it is a shame that everything displays quite so far away from the crowdline, and they let themselves down by allowing the car park to turn into a free-for-all on exit too, Tim and I were a full hour getting out, and believe it or not, that is actually good going!
Shuttleworth the following day was a stark contrast in that there was relatively little need for the longer end of my 100-500mm lens, everything flies far closer to the crowd, with stunning topside passes. (They also manage to deal with their car park emptying rather better too - a far more palatable 15 minutes and that got me all the way to the main road, which must be around 1.5 miles from the car park rather than Duxford's few hundred yards!) I was with Mark W and Richard for this one, but again bumped into other pals while there too.
Highlights for me were a first display for a while by the collection's Percival Mew Gull - recently out of deep maintenance - and the lovely three-ship formation involving the P-51 Mustang with the Grumman Bearcat and Hawker Fury, three aircraft which turned out to be surprisingly well matched. The light and conditions throughout the day were lovely, with the golden light of late afternoon being particularly spectacular.
Icing on the cake was the wind being light enough at the end of the day for some really special aircraft to display. The English Electric Wren is a favourite of all regular Shuttleworth attendees - it seems to get into the air as much via the will of the crowd as by the usual methods, and it is the only aircraft I've ever seen display that gets a hearty cheer simply for leaving the ground! The Bristol Box Kite is actually a replica of the 1910 original - this one was built in the 1960s for the film "Those magnificent Men in their Flying Machines". These only fly when there is pretty much NO wind, so seeing them is always a treat!
And now that will be that for shows until 2027. Soon enough we can turn attention towards Red Arrows winter training, which is always enjoyable although I never seem to get up there as much as I would ideally like. In spring next year the BBMF workups will start too - always a highlight - and Typhoon as well, although they tend to rarely do practises on a Friday now which is a shame as of course that's the day I can easily do. Until then though it's an opportunity to save up for tickets, and process the masses of pictures from this season I still haven't got to!
Robyn
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