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The smell of oil & Fuel, the sound of smoking and kicking turbosupercharged Cyclone engines and the view of beautifully shaped aircrafts. This means that you are at the largest warbird airshow in Europe, the "Flying Legends" at the Duxford Airfield, UK. A very well coordinated airshow with a great and relaxed atmosphere, highly professionally restored warbirds and this time good weather. Firts time for me to withness where the "layers" used during the airshow, that gives the opportunity to give a rollercoaster of an airshow with no gaps in it. While on a higher flightlevel aircrafts where performing their airshow, where other aircrafts coming in for the landing or going into take-off. And this was repeated from the beginning of the airshow to the end, causing the displays seamlessly flow into one another.
As this was my first time to visit, where a lot of aircrafts on my wish list with as personal highlights the two flying Corsairs, a Douglas AD4N Skyraider, Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and the three cats consisting of a Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, Grumman FM2 Wildcat and the Grumman F8F-2P Bearcat. Largely missed due to technical problems was the participation of the Lockheed P-38F Lightning "Glacier Girl", this beautiful bird took flight again after thousands of hours of work after it was once buried under 260-feet of ice stuck in Goose Bay, Newfoundland and been recovered in the spring of 1992. The "Glacier Girl" and fellow P-51-TF Mustang "Miss Velma" where making this flight from home base Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to recreate Operation Bolero. Both aircrafts where, when arrived at Duxford, to perform the famous Heritage Flight with a F-15E Strike Eagle. This special flight was now flown by "Miss Velma", a Bell P-39 Airacobra, P-51D Mustang "Twilight Tear" and a Lakenheath based F-15E Strike Eagle flown by Cpt. Albert Kennedy.
The weather over the whole day was changing continuously with dark clouds and rain, or white puffy clouds and sunshine, the sunshine however was luckily seen more over the field than the rain. Overall a very impressive and coordinated airshow with some very rare and beautiful warbirds in all shapes and sizes, and definitely on my list for the next years to come.
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