D-Day Anniversary Airshow
Sunday 6th June 2004 was the 60th anniversary since the end of the D-Day landings at Pegasus Bridge, Normandy. It was only fair that Duxford should hold a world class airshow to commemorate this event.
The initla flying display started at 1pm, with a fly past from a Boeing E-3D Sentry opening the show. The E-3D Sentry is a surveillance and control aircraft and is the only aircraft in the world that can detect aircraft up to 400 miles away through its unique radar system. The E-3 Sentry flew in from the M11 side (east) of the airfield, as it was flying from its base at RAF Waddington and was doing a impressive slow speed fly past over the runway and crowd line.
The main display began at 2pm, with a mixture of rarely seen aircraft and ever popular airshow favourites, such as the Harrier GR7 and the BAE Systems Hawk, the same aircraft the Red Arrows use. Before any flying at 2pm could commence, a 1 minute silence, led by the Royal British Legion's George Ellis, was held for in the memory for all those who died in every military conflict, not just the second world war. The first aircraft on the scene at 2pm was the RAF Tornado F3. As usual, the Tornado F3 presented itself once more as an extremley powerful and agile combat aircraft.
The Next Aircraft to brace the Duxford Scene was the Grumman Wildcat and Grumman TBM Avenger. Both Aircraft, followed by the North American P-51 Mustang and the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, All took part in the D-Day landings on the American side of the war. These all performed excellent displays - both in tight formation flying and on their own in the solo roles. The plots of these WWII fighter defiantly demonstrated their abilities when it came to the formation and solo flying because of the tight and highly skilled maneuvers that they carried out as part of their excellent display.
Some of the P-51 and P-47, with the Supermarine Spitfire were based at Duxford airfield, where the Imperial War Museum Duxford now is. They made Duxford's name in the later stages of the war as Duxford was home to the mighty 8th air force. These performed a separate display in the later parts of the airshow.
One thing that you always hope will never happen at a airshow is an accident to happen - but, unfortunately, there was a accident at the D-Day Anniversary Airshow, a world war two Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Hawker Hurricane suffered a bad accident upon arriving at Duxford - the undercarriage collapsed when landing at around 10.00am, three hours before the main flying began. It was pretty obvious what had happened because there was a huge crane trying to lift the Hurricane off the ground.
One thing I like about Duxford is that you can actually go onto the flight line [the runway and the lineup] to get some really good photographs of the aircraft that would be displaying in the show. That's one thing that not every airshow allows.
The day of the show was scorching hot - with the sun shining so brightly out on the airfield, the participating pircraft were looking extra beautiful. I did have one disappointment - I thought the Breightling Fighters would make an appearance, but they didn't. They're a group of pilots that took the colours' of "the Flying Tigers" at Duxford Flying Legends 2002. They fly a mixture of P-51 Mustangs, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-40 Kittyhawk Aircraft. The "Flying Tigers" were a group of American pilots that flew for the Japanese air force during world war two.
The RAF Hawk, the same aircraft that the Red Arrows use, displayed in the early parts of the airshow. After a large display in it's allocated time, it has performed a lot of tight flying and complex maneuvers before departing back to it's base.
The BAE Systems Harrier GR-7, the Model which is going in for a upgrade later this year, flew in and completed a fly past before demonstrating it's unique capabilities - It is the only aircraft in the world that can fly and take off vertically.
The RAF's Nimrod, which is another great airshow favourite, flew in from its Scottish base of RAF Kinloss to perform a excellent display. It was followed by the L-4 Cub [Pair] flying with the Fieseler Storch, a world war two reminiscence aircraft that took part in D-Day and the RAF C-130 Hercules.
Other aircraft, Such as the RAF's jet trainer, The Tucano and the Belgian air forces' Fouga Magister all made appearances to the show and displayed.
Just before the closing of the D-Day Anniversary arshow, the RAFGSA Glider Duo and the Team Condor K21 glider duo aerobatic team performed some rarely seen airshow glider Aerobatics which was also very interesting as I've never seen gliders at any airshow I've been to!
The Aerostars Yak display team were also on hand to present us with a feast of noise and colour. The Aerostars operate six Yakolov Yak 50 aircraft. As the Red Arrows weren't present at the show, the Yak Display Team were very welcome.
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress "Sally B", The Imperial War Museum's flying flagship and permanently based at Duxford, was also present in the display lineup. The airshow and the D-Day anniversary celebrations were closed by the Red Devils. They are a group of British parachute jump veterans who appear at airshows all over the UK. They performed some outstanding display for the crowd at the show. A truly remarkable event.
