Duxford 'D Day 80' Airshow Review

 

It's time for the first airshow review of the year! Last week was really busy for two of my favourite activities airshows and concerts (you can read all about how I got onstage with my favourite band 30 Seconds To Mars here ) add in my birthday and you can understand why I'm still knackered 😂. My last visit to Duxford was back in September last year for the Battle Of Britain airshow so I was raring to go again.

The theme for the show was the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D Day and the line-up reflected this with plenty of warbirds with a focus on the Dakotas over the weekend. 

An early start on the coach

Luckily I was able to fuel up

When we arrived I headed into the AirSpace hanger as it holds lots of my favourite aircraft.

Victor Bomber

Two iconic British aircraft - the Lancaster & Mosquito

The Merlin engine that powered them alongside Spitfires, Hurricanes & Mustangs

They make such a beautiful sound that I named a rabbit after them 😂

Miss Merlin

And not to forget the similarly aviation named Maverick & Mustang!

Maverick

Mustang

The fighter squadron

Back to the show, I decided since it was a beautiful day to stay outside as I've visited the other hangers on multiple occasions. This turned out to be the right decision as I was able to see some Dakotas departing.

The aircraft on the flightline glinted beautifully in the sunshine, especially the Flying Bulls DC6 & B25.

DC6

B25

Sally B

As an IWM Member I settled myself into the VIP area for the rest of the day.

Of course Corney came

He spent his pocket money on a Red Arrows outfit to wear for the rest of the airshow season

Showing it off whilst inspecting my Mars bandana

The flying display kicked off with a series of flypasts from two Dakotas. 

Parachutists were of course a huge part of the D Day operation and the Army Red Devils were excellent as always. 

There were a few aerobatic acts in the middle of the display including Team Raven 

Early WW2 aviation was on display from the Hawker Fury & Spitfire MK1

There were more Spitfires later on too with a MK9 & clipped wing variations.

We also had American fighters with the Curtis Hawks P39 & P40.

The Flying Bulls put on a lovely elegant display with their DC6 & B25

Navy Wings sent their Swordfish in far better weather than the Battle Of Britain airshow!

Duxford's resident Flying Fortress Sally B flew with P51 Mustang 'Jersey Jerk' which is a new addition to the UK airshow scene this year.

Sally B taxi-ing ready for display

Jersey Jerk over a Dragon Rapide

My favourite display of the day was the fantastic French Rafale. It was so great to see and hear a really noisy jet display so early in the season. 

"Let's turn and burn!"

Unfortunately due to a slight mix up with the coach times we were collected well before the end of the show meaning I only saw a short amount of the Blenheim display.

And only saw the Red Arrows from the motorway

You can watch the show highlights here -

Despite missing the end of the show it was still a great day and the perfect beginning to a *hopefully* sunny and dry airshow season.

Love Jen

XxxX

Mars 20 (yes really!)

 

Yes this is me onstage at the O2 Arena with 30 Seconds To Mars ..... You probably wondered how I got here ......

Let's start from the beginning  .....

Yes it actually happened, I saw 30 Seconds To Mars for the 20th time since 2007!

And yes of course there was a meet & greet involved .....

I hadn't seen them since waaaayyy back in 2018 when I saw them in London and Birmingham consecutively (you can read all about it here), I would have loved to do the same again but unfortunately since my unexpected bunny arrival in April (Maverick decided he actually wished to identify as male after all so you can guess what happened next) I just couldn't afford it, plus my post-covid autistic brain is struggling to cope with going anywhere, even to seen my favourite band in the world. As you can imagine the FOMO is super strong knowing that they're still here and playing other shows. Anyway back to what you all came here for, my blow by blow account of the show.

I stayed at my regular Travelodge as it's a 5 minute walk from East India DLR station which is approx a 10 minute journey to the O2.

Not a bad view

Obligatory hotel room video coming up. 

You can imagine my autistic delight when I realised it happened to be under the flightpath to London City Airport .....

I made a little Mars corner in my room

As you can imagine 17 years worth of Mars fandom has left me with a lot of merch accessories to wear (plus my headband I made) so I wanted to include them in my outfit as well as my traditional glyph face paint. 

My Instagram will attest to this

I got these in 2010 and they were signed in Lille in 2011

This is from Download 2013

The earrings are made from guitar picks and the key necklace references their Hurricane video (If you know you know 😉)

Obligatory lift selfie

I think I'm in the right place 😄

Like last time we did the Meet & Greet and photos before the show. There was a question and answer session too where we were invited to submit questions including my submission "Aside from the obvious 😉 what are your favourite British slang terms?" this had the effect of a giggling fit from Jared & Shannon and the trading insults with them ('tosser and 'wanker' being among the favourites 😂). There was also the discussion of the correct way to pronounce 'Michael Caine'  for those with a Non-British accent "My cocaine" which lead to the session descending into further giggling chaos. The question and answer sessions are never particularly formal but this one was even more casual and 'chat-like' than normal which was nice.

After the Meet & Greet it was time to head into the arena and in my case up to the side of the stage. I had a side of stage ticket way back in 2013 when I went with Helen (blog here) and it is nice to have more space and a closer view, especially whilst my anxiety is still so bad.

I loved the triad backdrop

They started the show in the crowd, what I've always loved about the band is that no matter how big the arena they still manage to include everybody no matter how far away they are. 

En route to the stage to start the show proper

The view was great, my photos aren't as great because I was using my ancient camera and my phone but this should give you the jist of how close we were.

As captioned by Jared "The world's biggest confetti bomb"

They played my favourite song in the world "Kings & Queens", the song means everything to me. As with all the videos from here on in I apologise for my singing 😕

I was pleased with how close we were!

There was plenty of pyro too which was fun and we could really feel the heat from them. Here's Stevie showing off his awesome guitar work.

Some more close photos

Jared on another run through the crowd

I really liked that Shannon had a 'portable' drum kit so that he was able to come forward and interact with the crowd too.

The guitar came out for some old school 'Attack' which I haven't heard live for years!

At the end of the show the unbelievable happened - I was ushered up ONTO THE STAGE!

I was so paranoid that my clumsy, dyspraxic self was going to fall up the steps but my balance didn't betray me for a change 😂

I can't begin to describe how it felt to be onstage with my favourite band in the world, it was just amazing. Admittedly I did hide behind some tall people so that I didn't get caught on camera 😂

Pretty lights on the way back to the hotel

Another obligatory 'slightly more dishevelled' post-gig lift selfie

I can't put into words the wow factor of what happened, getting a 'band's eye' view of the stage. Or indeed the sheer joy between the band and the crowd. I remembered even more whilst they're my favourite band. Hopefully they keep their promise to return next year!

Roll on gig 21!

Love Jen

XxxX