By DrSoda 
IWM Duxford opened with their VE Day Flying day for the 2026 airshow season and celebrated in a rather magical way. The day belonged to the de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk. 41 Chipmunks made their pilgrimage to Duxford to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the popular post war trainer with Chippies arriving from all over the UK including the very Chipmunk that now King Charles learnt to fly in back in 1968, WP903, as well as examples from Belgium but most surprisingly, three examples from Esquadra 802 ‘Eagles’ from the Portuguese Air Force, who were not just celebrating 80 years of the Chipmunk, but their 75th year of having their Chipmunk Mk20 in service as their choice of aircraft for new pilots to learn basic flying skills. A role the aircraft soon will be retired from.
A huge well done and thanks goes out to the flight crews and the ground crews from the Esquadra 802 as the trip took them 3 days with 10 stops from their base at Sintra to get to Duxford while their support crew made the journey by road.
The final flying display of the day involved 21 of the visiting Chipmunks, with the Portuguese taking their three Chipmunks up while the other 18 departed en-masse and formed a Balbo over the Duxford skies. Organised over the winter months and led by Phil Hardisty, the Balbo formed a Diamond 9 formation with three sets of 3 pursuing behind. As the Balbo passed over the airfield and flew a wide circuit, the Portuguese were on hand performing a joker display to make sure the crowd always had their eyes fixed on the display line.
With three passes by the Balbo, the Portuguese performed a bomb-burst break to signal the beginning of the end of the celebrations and slowly but surely the 21 Chipmunks began breaking down from their groups and landing on the grass strip.
A huge well done goes out to Phil Hardisty, Eric Brannan, Dave Rafcliffe, Tony De Bruyn, Paul Farmer, Alex Lewton, Tom Turner, Mark Linney, John Beattie, Simon Tilling, Petrus Luijken, Clive Denney, Frank Chapman, Bob Brinkley, Luc Coussement, Jon Windover, Christophe Laenen and Richie Piper as well as Esqudra 802 who managed to really add something special to this Flying Day and to celebrate an aircraft that would have seen thousands of pilots behind the control taking flight over the last 80 years.
Chipmunk at 80 Book
Ben Griffiths has worked incredibly hard to get together a book about the last 80 years of the Chipmunk and this can be pre-ordered here: https://chipmunkat80.carrd.co/