Flying in a Dragon Rapide, IWM Duxford, Cambridgeshire - 17th August 2024

Fred's really keen to visit IWM Duxford, so that's what we do, or rather that's what Fred and Nosher do as Isobel's got Jules visiting, and Harry can't be arsed. After we've been looking at aircraft for a while, we hear an announcement about flights on the de Havilland Dragon Rapide - a small passenger aircraft from the 1930s - and discover that they're actually relatively cheap. So with much excitement, we spend about 15 minutes flying around over the fields of Cambridgeshire in a plane that's pushing 90 years old. There's also a lot of other flying activity going on, with the usual two-seater Spitfire trips and plenty of Tiger Moths buzzing around, and there's a special bonus as Fred spots that one of our favourite planes - P-51D Mustang "Marinell" - is at the end of the Working Aircraft hangar, where it seems to have found a new home.

next album: A Trip to Ickworth House with Sis, Horringer - 19th August 2024
previous album: Camping at Weybread, and the BSCC at Cotton and Dickleburgh - 14th August 2024

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The B-17 Sally B/Memphis Belle is parked up

The B-17 Sally B/Memphis Belle is parked up

There's a solitary Victor bomber in a hangar

A giant Rolls-Royce Trent aero engine

Fred looks at the payload of a Lancaster

The exhaust ducts of a pair of Olympus engines

Fred looks around on Condorde 001

Concorde's flight deck

Another older flight deck

Fred looks at model aircraft

We have a look at a Panavia Tornado

A helicopter and an English Electric Lightning

Fred roams around on a Comet 4

The chaotic flightdeck of a Comet 4

A Comet 4's engine intakes

Fred gets a photo of one of the Black Buck Vulcans

Black Buck pilot Martin Withers in listed

The cabin of an Avro York - a civilian Lancaster

Crowds mill around under Concorde

The legendary Mosquito - the Wooden Wonder

A tiny Miles Magister trainer

The two-seater Spitfire heads off on a sortie

The iconic silhouette of a passing Spitfire

Another Spitfire in USAAF markings

A taxiing Spitfire

A Bristol Blenheim is readied for flight

The DeHavilland Dragon Rapide 'Nettie'

We check out the working-aircraft-in-repair hangar

A stripped-back Hawker Tempest

Fred spots old friend Marinell in the hangar

Fred tries to get a photo of Marinell

Marinell through the safety glass

Duxford's control tower

The latest Spitfire passenger gets a photo

The Spitfire is refuelled

The Spitfire pilot updates his logbook

A Britten-Norman Trislander

The nose of the mighty B-52 bomber

We stop for a snack and a drink in the café

Fred checks the headroom with a B-52's belly

We look at a mock up of a V-1 bomb and its launcher

An original pre-fabricated bungalow

Fred does thumbs up under a 9½' gun

The giant Bristol Brittania

A Gloster Meteor

The pilot and crew hang around

The Mk. IX Spitfire 9G-Q/MJ627

Fred scopes out our 'ride'

The Dragon Rapide G-AKIF at Duxford

The pilot checks that we're all strapped in

A single-seater deHavilland Vampire

The wheatfields of Cambridgeshire

Fred takes photos out of the window

A view of Duxford airfield

Cambridge and the M11

Addenbrooke's ever-expanding hospital site

The outdoor collection of British airliners

Cambridge fields through the wings of a biplane

A rear view of the Dragon Rapide

There's a nice lineup of warbirds on the grass

The Shackleton is being restored in a hangar

A Rolls-Royce Griffon and contra-rotating props

An original WWII hangar

A wall of various aircraft engines

Fred under the Shackleton's tailplane

A biplane is worked on

A Hurricane called 'Soph'

More Spitfires in an original WWII hangar

The British Antarctic Survey's Twin Otter

The other side of Sally-B