Flying Legends Duxford Guide - Pt. 1

Initial Planning - Part 1 of 4 -  it's spring, the dates for the Flying Legends Airshow at Duxford have been posted on the web, it's usually the second  Saturday and Sunday of July, LETS GO!!!

Our Flying Legends Duxford guide is in four parts (1 to 4), initial planning, UK travel, airshow shuttle, and seeing the show.

Last year (2015) we attended Flying legends for our first time, it was memorable thus one must attend this magnificent event as often as possible!

These posts on the Flying legends Duxford are from personal experience and we also used other tips off the web that we have incorporated in our trip and are included. Our planning paid off and we had no travel snags. 

Feel free to post your questions, comments or other tips on this blog.



Flying Legends Web Site

The Plan - we decided on a 10 day trip, and lodging was first item to be taken care off. One always needs a comfortable place to bunk down for the evening after walking miles on the airfield. The summer is tourist season in the UK and places fill up fast so surf the web for hotels around Duxford and Cambridge.

We decided to base ourselves out of Cambridge and we booked our rooms the day after the Flying Legends dates were announced. We also decided we would go direct to Cambridge and not do any of standard tourist tromps in London. Our focus would be on the Flying Legends Airshow, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, the Duxford Airport, the Eagle Pub  RAF bar in Cambridge and the John Barelycorn Pub in Duxford village.

The Earl of Derby Pub & Inn

Marc, the CSI in the group searched the web for the ideal hotel four us and settled on the Earl of Derby in Cambridge.

We also wanted a vintage hotel rather than an "Super 8" type of motel and the Earl looked the part, Marc made a very good choice. A 50% deposit at the time of the booking took care of the two rooms reservation.

The Earl of Derby staff treated us very well, the food and beer were great, the rooms were good, a/c did not work nor was the a/c required. The inn location is close to the train station and bus stops. If you decided on the Earl of Derby, be sure to ask for rooms in the attached annex, the annex is newer and away from the pub area.



The Earl of Derby with the annex to the right.

Second task was air tickets, as we all wanted to be on the same flight to London, we used a local travel agent to book our flights to ensure this, however one could probably do this on the web. We travelled on Delta, YWG to MSP, then MSP to LHR, flying into Gatwick (LGW) would be another option. A small perk to make up for the high summer air fares is that overseas flights offer free meals, beer and wine. I would advise to use the same airline for all flights if you have connections, if you book your connecting flight with an another airline which causes you to miss your overseas flight then airline problems arise.

The Delta crew was great, we flew economy with the optional leg room, the flight was long and noisy. Bring good earphones or ear plugs, a book on tape helped me sleep. We left at 10pm from MSP.
Third task was to order the Airshow Tickets, this was done online on the Flying Legends ticket page and the tickets arrived by mail in due time. We got the standard tickets and we this was fine for us.

Last pre-trip task was to book transportation from LHR to Cambridge. Since there were four of use we decided to book a taxi, a web search turned up recommendations for Panther Taxi.  The taxi booking for a mini-van was done on-line on the Panther Taxi web site and worked out great. Panther Taxi was good.

So here we are at the Winnipeg airport, raring to go, part 2 of our Flying Legends Duxford trip is on the next post.

ps: We'd be amiss if we did not not thank Thor Idor Laren at his website SpitfirePilots for providing us with very useful information of travelling to Duxford, it gave a us a planning start.



On to Part II  - Getting to Cambridge & Duxford

side note  - as we circled on our approach to London Heathrow, I had an "ah ha"moment, though I always known that the RAF aircraft camouflage was sand and spinach, I just accepted that it was that way, then seeing the English country side from the air for the first time,  I got it, this pic may explain it.