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Duxford Aerodrome, in the Cambridgeshire village of the same name some 8 miles south of Cambridge, is one of Britain's most historic airfields and today forms the flying element of the Imperial War Museum's Duxford site. Dating from the First World War and famous for its Battle of Britain and USAAF service, it remains an active grass and hard-surface airfield used for vintage and general aviation flying, air displays and the museum's own operations.
Duxford Aerodrome sits within the civil parish of Duxford in south Cambridgeshire, about a mile west of the village itself. It is owned by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and forms the working airfield attached to Imperial War Museum Duxford, home to one of the world's most significant collections of historic aircraft and the American Air Museum. For a visiting pilot the field offers a rare chance to fly into a genuine former RAF fighter station whose wartime hangars, technical buildings and grass strip survive largely intact, set against the backdrop of the museum's static and airworthy collection.
Duxford lies in Cambridgeshire, roughly 8 miles south of Cambridge and close to the M11 motorway, within the civil parish of Duxford and about a mile west of the village. The aerodrome holds a CAA Ordinary Licence permitting public transport flights and flying instruction, and it is not licensed for night use.
Duxford has two physical runways. The main paved runway, 06R/24L, is a hard surface 4,738 ft long on the 06R threshold and 4,396 ft on the 24L threshold, and is lit. A parallel grass runway, 06L/24R, runs to 2,885 ft in each direction and is also lit. Field elevation is 112 ft, and there is no ILS.
Pilots should call Duxford Information on 122.075 MHz, an advisory (A/G) frequency rather than a full air traffic control service.
Duxford's origins lie in the Army manoeuvres of 1912, though construction of a formal airfield did not begin until October 1917, when it was built as one of a pair of stations alongside nearby Fowlmere. The first units, including members of the American Expeditionary Forces, arrived in March 1918 as a Training Depot Station, and many of the surviving buildings were erected using German prisoner-of-war labour. After the First World War the Royal Air Force retained Duxford as a training school before reclassifying it as a fighter station in April 1923; No. 19 Squadron formed there that year flying Sopwith Snipes, and the station's fighter squadrons subsequently flew Gloster Grebes, Armstrong Whitworth Siskins, Bristol Bulldogs and, from 1935, the Gloster Gauntlet. On 6 July 1935 Duxford hosted a Silver Jubilee Review before King George V, who watched twenty squadrons on the airfield. Flight Lieutenant Frank Whittle, later the pioneer of the jet turbine, flew regularly from Duxford in 1936 as a member of the Cambridge University Air Squadron. In August 1938 No. 19 Squadron became the first RAF unit to receive the Supermarine Spitfire, taking delivery of the third production aircraft, K9789, presented at Duxford by Supermarine's chief test pilot Jeffrey Quill. During the Second World War Duxford was the southernmost station of 12 Group, Fighter Command, under Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, defending the Midlands, East Anglia and parts of northern England; No. 19 Squadron moved to nearby Fowlmere in June 1940 to free space at Duxford as Britain prepared for a possible invasion. The airfield later served United States Army Air Forces fighter units supporting the daylight bombing campaign against Germany. Duxford remained an active RAF airfield until 1961. Declared surplus by the Ministry of Defence in 1969, it was initially used for museum storage before the Imperial War Museum received permission to use the whole site from February 1976, with the runway itself purchased by Cambridgeshire County Council in 1977.
Duxford Aerodrome remains an active civilian airfield alongside its role as the flying home of Imperial War Museum Duxford, hosting flying companies, fly-ins and regular air shows including the Battle of Britain Air Show and Flying Finale. The aerodrome is not licensed for night flying. Many of the original First World War and 1930s hangars and technical buildings remain in use, giving the airfield a strong sense of continuity with its RAF past even as it now supports civil training, vintage aircraft operations and museum displays.
