Quote:
Originally Posted by barx1963
The Flying Legends at Duxford is one of the great experiences, if you ever get a chance to go, it is awesome. Merlin heaven!!
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The greatest flying (and static) display I have ever witnessed was at Duxford in 1989.
I had heard about this amazing collection, so went to visit when I was travelling around Britain. I pulled into the car park just before opening time and got out of the car, just in time to see a B-17 coming in to land - one wheel down, one wheel up, one or two props not turning, and belching smoke out of a couple of engines!
Horrified and stunned, I and a few dozen other early arrives ran over to the perimeter fence to watch what happened next.
The B-17 executed a perfect touch-and-go, then climbed away, switched off the smoke, re-started the stationary engines, did a circuit, and came in to land.
It turned out they were filming
"Memphis Belle" using Duxford as their base - and I happened to witness one of the takes for the climactic final scene where she comes in to land, all shot up after her legendary 25th mission!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphi...lm)#Production
The film producers had collected the most amazing collection of war-birds for the flying scenes, from all over the world. That was the only WWII flying action that I saw that day, but all of the "extras" were parked just off the taxi-ways, so could be inspected at close quarters - amazing!