Duxford Imperial War Museum

We visited Duxford Imperial War Museum today.  Duxford was first used as an airfield during the First World War and continued to be a Royal Air Force station until the 1960s. Today there are seven hangers housing an impressive collection of military equipment (mostly aircraft) dating back almost a century. Many of the airplanes are maintained in flying condition, which is pretty cool. We were a few miles away from the museum when we saw an old biplane flying overhead and once we arrived we saw several old planes, including a Spitfire, taking off and landing from the grassy runway at Duxford. For only £4850 each, or about $6300, we could have taken a 50-minute flight in one of these iconic World War II planes. 

We decided to stick with the regular stuff in the museum instead of dropping thirty grand on airplane rides. And there was a lot to see! There were areas devoted to American planes, ground fighting in the first and second World Wars, what it takes to care for and conserve old military equipment, what life was like at Duxford as an active airfield, the history of flight, and of course every type of aircraft you can imagine. We've been to the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC a time or ten, and this was like that but on a smaller scale and with tanks, howitzers, and bomb shelters thrown in the mix. It was quite interesting to see these historic events from a different perspective and get the British point of view on these major events of the twentieth century. In America when remembering World War II there's a lot about Pearl Harbor and D-Day, in England, it's the Battle of Britain and The Blitz. 

In one of the hangers, there was a small area dedicated to the history of the British Army's Parachute Regiment. So not exactly airplanes or military equipment, but military members jumping out of airplanes is pretty close. There were some pretty cool photos and videos of enormous parachutes attached to things like jeeps and motorcycles being dropped out of airplanes. And maybe it's the American in me, but I really liked this big display with guns of every description suspended in the air. Do you see Abigail and Natalie playing hide and seek?  

Duxford Imperial War Museum was a fun place to spend a Saturday afternoon and worth the visit, but expensive to get in - we paid $75 for the five of us and that was with the family discount. But we can cross it off our list of local sights to visit plus it seemed like a fitting family day out for Veteran's Day weekend.