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Duxford VE Day Airshow 2026 |
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| ‘The day however, always belonged to the de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk. 41 Chipmunks made their pilgrimage to Duxford to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the popular post war trainer...’ | |
| The 9th of May saw IWM
Duxford open its vast public flying display of the 2026 season
with the VE Day Flying Day. For those unfamiliar with the Duxford
Flying Days, Duxford hold three of these each year, free to IWM
Members and are what I can only describe as what you would imagine
an aviation museum with its own flying collection would be like. A
perfect match up of historic airframes and aviation artifacts with
a 2-hour flying display smack bang in the middle of your day. A
great day out at such a historic airfield that really allows you
the time to also get round the aviation halls and hangars. This year the VE Day Flying display is both commemorating the 81st Anniversary of the Victory in Europe as well as celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the DHC-1 Chipmunk, a post war single engined trainer aircraft that served across 23 military operators across the world, designed and built by de Havilland Canada. |
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| With gates opening at 10am,
the airfield was busy from the get-go with the arrivals of the
Chipmunks in almost metronomically fashion as well as Classic
Wings Dragon Rapides and Tiger Moths taking people of pleasure for
a quick couple of loops around the airfield. A truly fantastic
opportunity to see Duxford and its collection from above and a
real taster on the type of experience you can have with Classic
Wings throughout the year. The real draw of the flying days though is a superb balance between air displays and galivanting through the remarkable collection that the Imperial War Museum Duxford has curated over the years. My personal favourite is Hangar 2 where the flying collections resides. The smell of engine oil and the rawness of aircraft with panels and cowlings removed really provides a window into the intricacies and complexities of warbirds, some of which are now over 90 years old. |
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| A real treat on this VE Day Flying day was a flightline walk before the flying commenced. Often reserved for the Summer and Battle of Britain airshows, organisers decided it was too good of an opportunity to miss to see such a collection of Chipmunks as well as allowing their dedicated volunteers to dust off some winter cobwebs ready for the bigger flightline walks at the upcoming airshows. | |
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| The
flying display started just after 13:00 with The Fighter
Collections own Grumman Wildcat piloted by Brian Smith and Curtiss
P-40F piloted by Stu Goldspink, who both made sure the
Cambridgeshire countryside knew that airshow season was now upon
us. Starting off with a couple of pairs flypasts before each
breaking into solo displays of loops and rolls, both pilots really
allowed every square inch of these iconic warbirds to be viewed
along the flight line. As is the Duxford way at these events and
this afternoon was no different. With a change of pace coming next, Anna Walker took her Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann out to wow the crowd with an impressive aerobatic display, really showcasing the capabilities of the German biplane trainer. The display really highlighted the precision, control and skill that Anna has at the controls especially for an aircraft with such little power especially compared to some of the powerful warbirds Anna has tamed under her belt over the span of her Flying career. |
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As the sound of Merlin engines grunted into life on the ground,
the Ultimate Warbirds Flights Lockheed 12A Electra piloted by Ben
Cox, gracefully flew down the display line for the start of his
display, bring a touch of luxury to proceedings. In the scheme of
Fredericks Sidney Cottons Electra 12A, used to take covert aerial
photographs of German and Italian military buildup under the guise
of promoting his film business, todays display really showed how
agile the twin engined utility aircraft is, with tight turns and
some stunning topside views I’m certain all photographers were
thankful for. Pete Kynsey took to the skies in the small but incredibly quick LeVier Cosmic Wind. An experimental race aircraft, it was one of 6 built by employees of the Lockheed Corporation and won the King’s Cup Race in 1964. With only an 85hp engine, Peter really showed the agility and acceleration of the Cosmic Wing with a range of fast passes and loops with a highlight of a beautifully performed and controlled 12-point hesitation roll, much to the awe to the spectators in my vicinity. |
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Duxford’s resident Supermarine Spitfire Mk1 N3200 and Ultimate
Warbird Flights own Hawker Hurricane Mk1 P2902 took to the skies
with a pair’s take off to signal their intent to entertain with
some Merlin power. The pair as always at Duxford started off with
some high speed passes really giving the sense of power these
early variants started off with before their development through
the years and both showing off the early RAF identification
schemes of one white and one black wing, which in tandem really
looked the part. Trevor Duggan then took the lead in the Hurricane as the display evolved into a tail chase with the Spitfire piloted by Martin Overall not far behind, performing victory rolls so famously known from these two iconic British Warbirds. |
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The finale of the Warbird flying was then
upon us with an excellently put together trio of Aircraft
Restoration Company’s Hispano HA112 Buchon, piloted by Paul
Bonhomme, their newly acquired P-51D Mustang ‘Tall in the Saddle’
flown by Jon Gowdy and the Old Flying Machine Company’s
Supermarine Spitfire LFIXb MH434 with Lee Proudfoot at the
controls, starting their display off with an incredibly close and
skilfully flown close formation which had everyone in awe. |
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| The day however, always
belonged to the de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk. 41 Chipmunks
made their pilgrimage to Duxford to celebrate the 80th Anniversary
of the popular post war trainer with Chippies arriving from all
over the UK, including the very Chipmunk that now King Charles
learnt to fly in back in 1968, WP903, as well as examples from
Belgium but most surprisingly, three examples from Esquadra 802
‘Eagles’ from the Portuguese Air Force, who were not just
celebrating 80 years of the Chipmunk, but their 75th year of
having their Chipmunk Mk20 in service as their choice of aircraft
for new pilots to learn basic flying skills. A role the aircraft
soon will be retired from. A huge well done and thanks goes out to the flight crews and the ground crews from the Esquadra 802 as the trip took them 3 days with 10 stops from their base at Sintra to get to Duxford while their support crew made the journey by road. The final flying display of the day involved 21 of the visiting Chipmunks, with the Portuguese taking their three Chipmunks up while the other 18 departed en-masse and formed a Balbo over the Duxford skies. Organised over the winter months and led by Phil Hardisty, the Balbo formed a Diamond 9 formation with three sets of 3 pursuing behind. As the Balbo passed over the airfield and flew a wide circuit, the Portuguese were on hand performing a joker display to make sure the crowd always had their eyes fixed on the display line. With three passes by the Balbo, the Portuguese performed a bomb-burst break to signal the beginning of the end of the celebrations and slowly but surely the 21 Chipmunks began breaking down from their groups and landing on the grass strip. |
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| A huge well done goes out to
Phil Hardisty, Eric Brannan, Dave Rafcliffe, Tony De Bruyn, Paul
Farmer, Alex Lewton, Tom Turner, Mark Linney, John Beattie, Simon
Tilling, Petrus Luijken, Clive Denney, Frank Chapman, Bob
Brinkley, Luc Coussement, Jon Windover, Christophe Laenen and
Richie Piper as well as Esqudra 802 who managed to really add
something special to this Flying Day and to celebrate an aircraft
that would have seen thousands of pilots behind the control taking
flight over the last 80 years. It really was an outstanding start to Duxford’s flying season, and I can be certain that after such a performance, the D Day Flying day on the 6th of June and the upcoming airshows will be hugely popular. Check out www.iwm.org.uk for details. |
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Review by Nick Soan |
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