Duxford Flying Finale 2023

The Duxford Flying Finale is the last air display of the year at IWM Duxford, in Cambridgeshire, and its purpose is stated openly: to gather in a single afternoon the best of everything that has flown there during the season. Imperial War Museums bill it as a special end-of-season flying display spread across the historic site, and the specialist press describes it as the event that closes the calendar, usually mixing aircraft already seen earlier in the year with a few late appearances before flying operations wind down for the winter.

It did not begin as an event in its own right. Duxford's 2021 season closer was called 'Best of 2021' and was listed as a Flying Day — one of the aerodrome's smaller occasions — yet it turned out to be one of the finest displays of that year. In 2022 the museum promoted the date to a 'Special Flying Event', renamed it Flying Finale and gave it the billing it still carries: celebrating the highs of all the year's flying displays and aerial events in one final flying display. That, then, is the first edition under the present name, and the show has been held every October since.

The event is young; the setting is not. Duxford held its first air show on 14 October 1973, the 'Duxford Air Day': the first time the general public had been invited into the aerodrome to see the museum's work and watch aircraft fly there. The inaugural programme mixed historic machines with front-line types — a Supermarine Spitfire and a Hawker Hurricane, a de Havilland Mosquito, a Hunting Percival Provost, a Gloster Gladiator, a Fairey Swordfish, a de Havilland Dove, and English Electric Canberra, Hawker Hunter and Jet Provost jets — and added a balloon ascent in Dr John Gore's 56,000 cubic foot hot air balloon, nicknamed 'Aquarius', which had crossed the English Channel earlier that year and had been used in the hunt for the Loch Ness monster. Visitors could also take a pleasure flight in a Britten-Norman Islander operated by Humber Airways. The show was such a success that air displays became an integral part of IWM Duxford's work, and the single Spitfire and single Hurricane of 1973 have since been joined by a great many more.

The first edition under the Flying Finale name was held on 8 October 2022 and, by the accounts of the day, was a cracking close to the season. Most of the programme was made up of Duxford- and Sywell-based warbirds in various combinations, but the two pre-announced highlights were Patrouille Suisse, the Swiss national display team, and the Royal Air Force's Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, both flying late in the afternoon under clear skies and plenty of sunshine. The list took in four Spitfires (The Fighter Collection's LF Vb EP120, the Historic Aircraft Collection's LF Mk Vb BM597 and two Mk Vcs, EE602 and JG891), two Hawker Hurricane Mk Is, the Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina, a Hawker Fury FB.II painted as the Sea Fury prototype, the TF-51D Mustang 'Contrary Mary', the Republic P-47D Thunderbolt 'Nellie B', the Curtiss P-40F Warhawk 'Lee's Hope', and The Fighter Collection's trio of Grumman FM-2 Wildcat, F8F-2P Bearcat and Goodyear FG-1D Corsair. Unannounced extras included the Last Dogfight act with a Storch and a Cub, a pair of XtremeAirs, and a closing routine by Brendan O'Brien in 'Otto', his comedy helicopter. The breeze proved too strong for the Fokker Dr.I replica, and the Hispano HA-1112 M1L Buchón also stayed on the ground.

The show of 14 October 2023 kept the Flying Finale title and fell on the fiftieth anniversary, to the very day, of the first ever Duxford air show. The museum framed it around the aerodrome's three eras — what was seen in 1973, what has been achieved since, and what lies ahead — and reviewers agreed it did a little of all three, though without a single peak moment to match what Patrouille Suisse had provided the previous year. Two survivors of the 1973 line-up were announced: the Miles Magister P6382, now with the Shuttleworth Collection, which did display again half a century later, and the same collection's Avro Tutor, grounded by a technical problem. There were indirect links too: Aero Legends' DC-3 had been at the airfield under restoration on the day of that first show, and Miles Magister N3788 was on site in dismantled condition.

Spitfire Mk Ia N3200, IWM's only airworthy aircraft, flew alongside examples operated by Comanche Fighters, the Rolls-Royce Heritage Flight and the Historic Aircraft Collection, while two Hurricanes — a Mk XIIa and a Mk I — stood in as aerial ambassadors for the type's Battle of Britain service. The programme was completed by the only airworthy Bristol Blenheim in the world, operated by the Aircraft Restoration Company; the Comrade Pair with a Yakovlev Yak-18T and a Yak-52; the PBY-5A Catalina, presented in the markings of the 8th Air Force's 5th Emergency Rescue Squadron at Halesworth, Suffolk; a Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing; a North American T-6 Harvard pair; The Titans with an Xtreme Decathlon and an XtremeAir XA42; the pyrotechnic act of the Firebirds Aerobatic Team; Otto the Helicopter; and Diana Britten, the first woman to be British Aerobatic Champion, in her CAP 232. Spitfire PR Mk.XIX PS853 and a P-51D flew as ambassadors for Rolls-Royce. The Taylor Mono Team of Ben Gilmore and Bruce Douglas also made its Duxford debut in its first display season, with two diminutive open-cockpit monoplanes powered by 1600cc Volkswagen engines said to cost around fifty pounds an hour to run. The programme ran for two and a half hours.

On 5 October 2024 the Flying Finale closed Duxford's fiftieth display season. The anticipated highlights were the Aircraft Restoration Company's Spitfire PR XI PL983 flying in formation with the RAF Typhoon, and the return of the Red Arrows in their first display since the Canadian tour and their last public display of the year; the surprise, kept back almost until the day itself, was a Red Arrows flypast with Spitfire MH434 immediately before their own display. Sharp on-crowd winds forced the cancellation of the gliders, the Airco DH.9 and the Fokker Dr.I, so the whole First World War section had to be abandoned; in compensation the afternoon was mostly bright and the threatened showers stayed away. The programme was arranged by theme: 'Recce' opened with Peter Kuypers in his Beech D17S Staggerwing and Alex Smee in Fighter Aviation Engineering's Spitfire Mk XIV, recalling the part reconnaissance aircraft played just before and during the Second World War; then came the trainers (Chipmunk, Jungmann and Yak-52, first in formation and then solo), 'The Last Dogfight' with the display debut of Paul Ford's Aeronca L-3 alongside the Slepcev Storch and the L-4 Grasshopper, 'Ultimate Pistons' with the Hawker Fury ISS and the Grumman Bearcat, 'US Fighters' with the P-51 Mustang 'Jersey Jerk' and the P-47 Thunderbolt 'Nellie B', and 'Racers' with the Pitts Special and the LeVier Cosmic Wind. The Schleicher ASK 21 glider from the Cambridge Gliding Club, intended to open the afternoon, was unable to fly.

The edition of 4 October 2025 was the harshest in the event's short history. A major storm had been forecast well in advance and, although the show had sold out, many ticket holders had second thoughts; of the planned line-up only three acts flew. Plane Sailing's Catalina fired up at around 13:30 and made a few passes in very gusty conditions beneath a dark sky, flown by Phillip Petitt and Jeff Boyling, ending with a remarkably smooth landing. Squadron Leader Nathan Shawyer's Typhoon FGR4 followed at around 15:30 in brighter conditions. The Red Arrows closed the day with an eight-aircraft display — Red 5 was missing with a technical problem and Red 1 was Squadron Leader Jon Bond — in some of the trickiest conditions of their season, and with it their last public display of the year. Everything else was cancelled on safety grounds: the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster PA474, Spitfire Mk IIa and Hurricane Mk IIc, half a dozen Spitfires including IWM's N3200, the DH.9, the P-47 'Nellie B', Hawker Fury SR661, the Lockheed 12A Electra Junior, the Fokker Dr.I replica, Hurricane V7497 and the Equipe de Voltige de l'Armée de l'Air with its Extra 330s.

The 2026 edition takes place on Saturday 3 October at IWM Duxford (Cambridgeshire, CB22 4QR), organised by Imperial War Museums, with Al Lockwood as flying display director. It closes a season that has included the Duxford Summer Air Show on 4 and 5 July, the Flying Evening on 22 August — a shorter event flown closer to sunset — the Battle of Britain Air Show on 12 and 13 September, and the themed Flying Days: VE Flying Day on 9 May, D-Day Flying Day on 6 June and The Americans Flying Day on 24 July. The announced line-up, all subject to confirmation by the organiser, comprises the Red Arrows with seven BAE Systems Hawk T1s, the RAF's Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 of 29 Squadron and Plane Sailing's Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina; further details are to follow. Advance booking is essential: no tickets are sold on the day, either online or at the gate, and the museum warns that the event will sell out.