If you're a fan of vintage aircraft and machinery, can I recommend Duxford Imperial War Museum as a very good value day out?
My friend and I attended the second and last day of the final air show of the season today.
For the princely sum of £25 we saw five solid hours of flying and more aircraft on the ground. That's £5 an hour.
The highlights included the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight AND the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Lancasters (the only two airworthy examples) a Tacano trainer, Hawks, Hunters, a Catalina, a Hurricane, a positive bevy of Spitires, lots of aerobatics and a bunch of First World War replicas including one flown by musician Bruce Dickinson, who is not only a qualified pilot, he is also a rather good fencer as well. The Red Arrows performed and there were a bunch of other aircraft on show that you could poke around for an extra £2.50.
Duxford allows visitors to bring in their own picnics, although it requests that, as litter and aircraft engines don't generally mix, people take their litter home or bag it up securely and leave it by one of the bins on site. That was certainly preferable to forking over half my weekly income for a sub-standard greasy junk food mix, as so often happens at these places.
There are loads of exhibits and special showcases as well, themed around the history of conflict in the 20th century. It's an educational site too with something for all ages. See the website for more details.
The air show today was a sell out, mainly thanks to the Lancs. It took several hours to get into the site due to the horrendous traffic jams, but once in, it was awesomeness personified.
