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WARBIRDS WARBIRDS INTERNATIONAL WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS WARBIRDS THE FLYING LEGENDS AIRSHOW AT HISTORIC DUXFORD AIRFIELD HAS BECOME THE GLOBAL STANDARD FOR WARBIRD EVENTS BY DOUG FISHER Today, it is a bit hard to believe but during the mid-1970s Duxford Airfield was basically abandoned. Many of the WWII (and earlier) buildings and hangars were intact — except for one Great War hangar that was needlessly destroyed during the filming of Battle of Britain. Except for a few large airliners that had been flown in and parked for a proposed air museum, the field was a ghost town — but in a good way. One could walk the ramp in the golden light of a British summer and almost hear the sounds of the fighters that populated the airfield through the 1920s and 1930s — leading into the tumultuous summer of 1940 as Spitfires clawed aloft to meet the seemingly unstoppable flow of Luftwaffe bombers and fighters. Today, of course, Duxford is anything but ghostly. It houses the magnificent Imperial War Museum Collection, the American Air Museum in Britain, and numerous private companies catering to the care of feeding of vintage aircraft. One of the most prominent outfits based at Duxford is Stephen Grey’s The Fighter Collection (TFC) that is also the creator of the annual Flying Legends Airshow — an event that has set the standard for Warbird flying displays. Each year, the TFC staff and volunteers carefully plan out next year’s event to make sure the public is treated to a world-class display of vintage and veteran flying machines. For 2018, the selection of participating aircraft was particularly good and Flying Legends was blessed with hot, dry weather. In fact, Britain was in the grip of a heat wave that had turned the normally green fields into a golden yellow. In this section we are presenting photographs of a number of the machines that attended — aircraft that provided the sounds and sights of a time past but a time still very much alive at Duxford. Two planes that represented the excellent selection at Flying Legends 2018 are seen in this photo — the Bristol Blenheim flown by Lee Proudfoot and Supermarine Spitfire Mk. I X4650 piloted by Stu Goldspink. One of the highlights of the event was a Heritage Flight undertaken by a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II piloted by Capt. Andrew Olson and accompanied by Steve Hinton in Spitfire V JG891 and Dan Friedkin in P-51D The Hun Hunter/Texas. Red Bull is always a major supporter of Flying Legends and the company’s Corsair and Lightning are pictured going through one of their polished routines. The Fighter Collection’s Hawker Sea Fury T Mk. 20 is finished in the post-war Royal Navy training scheme of overall silver with yellow bands. The two-seater was piloted by Nick Grey. 30 WARBIRDS INTERNATIONAL/October-November 2018 warbirdsintlnow.com 31.

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