We were provided with press tickets to the Imperial War Museum Summer Air Show at Duxford for this post however all opinions are my own.

We don’t need asking twice if we would like to visit the Imperial War Museum Duxford, especially when there’s an air show on!

Our son, Jacob, 11, is aircraft obsessed! Having a particular love of Spitfires.

The Imperial War Museum Duxford is a truly spectacular place even when there isn’t an air show on. It is Europe’s largest air museum and there is so much to see.

A great place to spend a family day out.

Jacob got a good look at the British Aircraft Corporation Strikemaster pair

Situated in Cambridgeshire, just off the M11, it is accessible by car, bus, train or by air!

This historic site includes a vast range of enormous hangars, gigantic aircraft, a live airfield and a wide collection of personal stories of those who have lived, fought and died in conflict from the First World War to the present day.

IWM Duxford also served as a base for many of the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots during the Second World War.

Jacob loved listening to the engineer talk about the Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15UTI. It has a max speed of 652 mph! Wow!

We are lucky enough to be visiting IWM Duxford on the second day of the Summer Air Show.

This is the third time we have visited now, and we still haven’t seen everything IWM Duxford has to offer.

Jacob was lucky enough to say hello to this brilliant re-enactment group at IWM Duxford Summer Air Show.

Getting there early is a must for us. We like to do the Flightline Walk which is open to the public before the air displays commence and you get a great, up close look at the aircraft taking part in the show. I definitely recommend doing this.

We really enjoyed the air display of the Calidus Autogyro by the Gyro Air Displays. Amazing that the aircraft has to be moving forward for the rota blades to move as they are free spinning.

As we got there early, we had time to see the amazing sites on offer. This list of aircraft, vehicles, boats and artillery exhibits is mind-blowing.

There are 10 permanent exhibitions at IWM Duxford

AirSpace
Flying Aircraft
Historic Duxford
Air and Sea
Battle of Britain
Conservation in Action
Battle of Britain: Ops Block
American Air Museum
Land Warfare
The British Airliner Collection including 13 commercial airliners.

As we had found a good spot (anywhere is a good spot to be honest), we set up our camping chairs and headed down to AirSpace, hangar 1, to see the impressive nose drop on Concorde and all the other amazing large and small aircraft from every era on display. It still baffles me how they got all those massive aircraft in there. That must have been some jigsaw puzzle!

Found our spot for the day. Jacob is very excited to see the Summer Air Show at IWM Duxford

There are different options for you to choose from for seating, you can go all out and opt for the Gold Experience giving exclusive access to the marquee, including a picnic hamper full of goodies, a Duxford Summer Air Show programme and VIP parking. You can also opt to sit in the grandstand, or, like us, we grabbed our camping chairs and a spot by the fence on the air side.

You can also become a member and get discounts, great offers and much more.

There are so many food and drink stalls, Jacob opted for a yummy pizza as you can see, it didn’t last long!

There’s plenty of food and drink on offer, lots of stands selling everything from pizza, burgers, hotdogs, to doughnuts, coffee and a bar.

Before the show, we bought tickets for The British Airliner Collection. This is also something I would recommend doing. £6 for adults and £3 for a child, this is really worth seeing. I pretended to be air crew walking through these commercial airliners. It’s great to see them from years gone by and see how air travel has changed.

There was plenty of other things to see and do. There was live entertainment with music and songs from a bygone era. There was vintage cars and WWI aircraft. You can try some circus skills, listen to IWM Duxford volunteers, have a ride on the traditional steam fair, try your hand at woodturning, or get up close to real live exotic animals in the Zoolab. It really is a great family day out.

The now famous blue Spitfire PL983 ‘L’ Thank U NHS from the Aircraft Restoration Company

We were so exited for the main event. The air show is truly breathtaking.

Being able to see so many different air craft take to the skies is something we never get bored of. It is an amazing sight to see.

The show opened with a very impressive parachute display from The Royal Air Force Falcons Parachute Team from RAF Brize Norton. A fantastic demonstration of precision freefall and canopy skills. Just wow!

The Royal Air Force Falcons Parachute Display Team’s impressive opener to the air show.

We were lucky enough to see the following air craft displays. Check out this flight list.

Grob Tutor T1 from Royal Air Force Tutor Display Team
Leonardo Helicopters Wildcat HMA2 from Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton
The Blades Extra EA-300
Fokker S-11 Instructor Stichting Fokker Four from the Royal Netherlands Air Force
Richard Goodwin flying the Pitts S-2S biplane
British Aircraft Corporation Strikemaster Pair from Strikemaster Display UK
Calidus Autogyro from Gyro Air Displays
Vans RV-8 x6 from Team Raven aerobatic display
North American TF-51D Mustang from Anglia Aircraft Restoration Ltd
Republic P-47D Thunderbolt from Anglia Aircraft Restorations Ltd
Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-15UTI from Norwegian Air Force Historical Squadron
de Havilland Vampire FB.52 from Norwegian Air Force Historical Squadron
Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina from Plane Sailing
Sopwith Triplane, SE5a, Avro 504K, Fokker Dr1, Junkers CL1 from the Bremont Great War Display Team
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (Sally B) from B-17 Preservation
North American T-6 x2 from Aircraft Restoration Company Anglian War Birds
Spitfire PL983 ‘L’ from Aircraft Restoration Company.