As promised in my earlier post, Bringing a Little Bit of Fantasy to Life, here’s a brief account of a day spent at the Duxford Imperial War Museum.

My wife had bought tickets for a pleasure flight on an original De Havilland Dragon Rapide bi-plane airliner. This aircraft was originally built in the 1930’s and proved both successful and popular. The particular aeroplane that we were to fly on, ‘Nettie’, was built in 1946 for the Royal Air Force who used these planes throughout World War Two and beyond. It is currently owned and flown by Classic-Wings who are based at the Duxford museum. They also fly several other vintage aircraft including a Spitfire.

The Dragon Rapide is a small aircraft, seating eight passengers and a pilot. As it is propeller driven it is also a little noisy when in flight. I was surprised at how smooth both the take-off and landing were, however. We enjoyed a 45 minute flight that took us from Duxford over Ely and Cambridge. It was a perfect day for flying, no clouds and a gentle wind. This was a bucket-list moment for me and we celebrated it with champagne afterwards. I am going to remember this day for a very long time.