20250906 (318)_The_Duxford_Wing
Finale of the 2025 Duxford Battle of Britain Airshow: the Big Wing flypast, this year's formation involving 15 Spitfires and 7 Hurricanes. This magnificent aviation spectacle commemorates the mass engagement side of a controversy over tactics during the Battle between the AOC 11 Group, AVM Keith Park and his counterpart in the Midlands-covering 12 Group. AVM Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Park used the Dowding system of enemy location, tracking and ground controlled interception by his fighters to achieve concentration in time and space by individually controlled small formations whereas Leigh-Mallory, further from the action and somewhat jealous of the attention focused on 11 Group, wanted mass formations to tear into the attackers having formed up already. L-M saw his further back units as being able to take time to assemble in this way and formed the Duxford Wing under the already famous double-amputee fighter pilot Douglas Bader, then commanding 242 Squadron at Coltishall. It is now generally acknowledged that Park was right (indeed he was called upon to repeat his defensive success in Malta later in the war) but at the time it was an unhelpful distraction from command in a national battle for survival. Notwithstanding the arguments, when the Duxford Wing did get into action it was effective and must have disheartened Luftwaffe crews being told the RAF was down to the last fifty Spitfires. For the last runs that included breaking into the circuit to land, the Wing shook out into a series of vics instead of the wide arrowhead in which they began the segment.
20250906 (318)_The_Duxford_Wing
Finale of the 2025 Duxford Battle of Britain Airshow: the Big Wing flypast, this year's formation involving 15 Spitfires and 7 Hurricanes. This magnificent aviation spectacle commemorates the mass engagement side of a controversy over tactics during the Battle between the AOC 11 Group, AVM Keith Park and his counterpart in the Midlands-covering 12 Group. AVM Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Park used the Dowding system of enemy location, tracking and ground controlled interception by his fighters to achieve concentration in time and space by individually controlled small formations whereas Leigh-Mallory, further from the action and somewhat jealous of the attention focused on 11 Group, wanted mass formations to tear into the attackers having formed up already. L-M saw his further back units as being able to take time to assemble in this way and formed the Duxford Wing under the already famous double-amputee fighter pilot Douglas Bader, then commanding 242 Squadron at Coltishall. It is now generally acknowledged that Park was right (indeed he was called upon to repeat his defensive success in Malta later in the war) but at the time it was an unhelpful distraction from command in a national battle for survival. Notwithstanding the arguments, when the Duxford Wing did get into action it was effective and must have disheartened Luftwaffe crews being told the RAF was down to the last fifty Spitfires. For the last runs that included breaking into the circuit to land, the Wing shook out into a series of vics instead of the wide arrowhead in which they began the segment.