Shuttleworth Military Airshow
31st May 2025, Old Warden, Bedfordshire
Shuttleworth is located at Old Warden, approximately 5 miles west of Biggleswade. It’s a country home gardens and a collection of vintage Edwardian, and some more recent aircraft. During the summer it holds a number of events including three shows. This was the military air show. After 7 1/2 weeks convalescing from my leg operation, this was my first day out with the camera for almost 2 months.
On the day of the show, there had been a number of dropouts from the flying list for technical reasons, this included the Lancaster. It was also a new format this year with an afternoon airshow running from 2 PM to 6 PM, followed by a 90 minute break, and a resumption of flying at 7:30 for approximately a further hour. They’d also change the parking layout and taken some of the closer car parking areas close to the flightline and committed that to a military camp area.
I arrived at approximately 10:15. I was parked in the field about a quarter of a mile from the control tower. The military reenactment area, I thought was poor. It seemed to have comprised a lot of World War II American jeeps with their owners, mainly not in historical attire, sitting in their chairs beside the jeeps. This seemed a waste of space, and I would hope next year they would revert to allowing more cars to park closer to the flight lines. I was back at my chair for 2 o’clock for the airshow. I enjoyed the show, mainly as it was my first event of the year, so it all seemed relatively fresh. However, looking at it more analytically, it was a very lightweight flying list. Although a militaryshow, the flying list consisted predominantly of training aircraft, gliders, tugs, spotting, and reconnaissance aircraft. In terms of combat aircraft, there were a swordfish, a gladiator, a hurricane, and three spitfires. Compared to previous years, from memory, this seemed a very poor showing.
I was pleased for some of the shots that I took, and getting close to 6 PM I decided not to stay for the evening session And made my way home.
I hope they revert to a single afternoon for flying, as the interesting Aircraft were spread over two sessions, and from 2pm to 8:30pm seems too long a day for what they had flying this year.