Flightpath AugustSeptemberOctober 2017

82 |FLIGHTPATH

Duxford’s

T

hisyearsawthe25thannualFlyingLeg-

ends airshow, organised by The Fighter

Collection (TFC) at the Imperial War

Museum’s Duxford Airfield in the U.K.,

held over the weekend of 8-9 July. Additional

restrictionsbroughtinthisseasonbytheCivil

Aviation Authority meant that Display Au-

thorisations from other European countries

arenolongerrecognisedintheUnitedKing-

dom. This severely restricted the number of

participating aircraft from overseas, some-

thing the show is particularly known for.

For the first time since 2013, ‘The Horse-

men’ (Steve Hinton, Dan Friedkin and Ed

Shipley) came to Duxford from the U.S. to fly

their formation aerobatic routine. They

broughttwoaircraftwiththemfromthe

Friedkin stable, both wearing 357th FG mark-

ings.P-51DMustang‘Frenesi’wasdismantled

andshippedfromTexasinacrate,butnewly-

acquiredP-51B‘BerlinExpress’wasflown

across the Atlantic shortly before the show -

via Canada, Greenland and Iceland - by Lee

Lauderback, who has more than 9000 hours

on type. Unfortunately, while making its first

passduringtheSaturdaydisplayinthehands

of TFC’s Nick Grey, its cockpit canopy disinte-

gratedanddebrisdamagedthetailpreventing

any further participation in the airshow. On

Sunday,TF-51Mustang‘MissVelma’suffered

an engine failure and made a forced landing in

a field adjoining the airfield. It was substan-

tially damaged, but, most importantly, the pi-

lot was able to walk away.

Following an opening sequence featuring

nine Spitfires in a tail chase, other highlights

of the airshow included five Hurricanes fly-

ing in formation (a sight not seen in the U.K.

formorethan65years),asuperbformation

aerobatic routine by Richard Grace (Sea

Fury)andPeteKynsey(Bearcat),andanair

race sequence featuring the DH Comet, Mew

Gull, ‘Mystery Ship’ replica and replica Cos-

mic Wind.Mike Shreeve

Legends

Richard Sealey’s Travel Air ‘Mystery

Ship’replicatookpartintheairrace

sequence in the hands of Jez Cooke.