Memories of airshows at Duxford. Many have been powerful and exhilarating, others poignant and contemplative. Almost always they've entertained, at times they've amused. At others, alas, they've saddened. Recall the multiplicity of events staged there over the past 50 years, since the first on Sunday 14 October 1973, and the gamut of emotions comes flooding back. It's that sort of place. Yet it might not have been. Even as that Air Day was held, still the authorities at regional and national level hadn't decided what to do with the airfield. The Imperial War Museum had begun using its hangars as a large object store a couple of years earlier. The local council clung onto plans for a sports and recreation centre, with gliding - already taking place, thanks to the Cambridge University Gliding Club - and parachuting on part of the aerodrome, but much of the remainder given over to a country park and golf course, and only a single hangar earmarked for an aviation museum. The other two would become a sports hall and a riding school.
展开▼
