May 19th 2012 ~ Queens Jubilee Flypast

Maybe like the old Soviet Union parades where a few of the newer types flew circuits of Moscow to make it look as if they had far more. 😉
mmitch.

What do we have in reserve ?

I wonder if the formation will be visible from Blackbush?

On the CAA website it says,

The flypast will comprise two separate aircraft formations – nine Typhoon fighter jets open the event, followed later by a large mixed formation which will include two formations of Tucano and Hawk aircraft; The Red Arrows; and aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. In all there will be a total of 85 aircraft taking part in the flypasts.

Reading that in conjunction with the times of the airspace restrictions on the chart I take that to mean the 9 Typhoons will open the event shortly after 10.30 and then the rest of the aircraft will close it shortly after 12.30.

BBMF plus current RAF types ~ in two formations ~ 85 aircraft in total

The above is the key to this conundrum. Assuming that the formation flies a circuit sufficiently wide, they only need to put up forty two aircraft and rely on the assumption that most of those watching can’t count above that number in order to realise that the second formation is one aircraft short!

I’d probably expect more than 1 Hercules.

So what is going to flypast?

85 in total…

9 x Typhoons (from NOTAM)
5x BBMF (Lanc, Hurri, 3x Spits from BBMF website)
9x Red Arrows (from NOTAM)

Now the guess work…

3? x Hawk (formation from NOTAM)
3? x Tucano lead by display Tucano which has E II R on underside (formation from NOTAM)

6x Tornado GR4 (1 each Squadron)

1x Chinook
2x Puma
2x Merlin (1x RAF 1x RN)
2x Lynx (1x AAC 1xRN)
2x Sea King SAR (1x RN 1x RAF)

1x VC10 (farewell flypast)
1X Tristar
1x Voyager (showing the future)

2x King Air
1x E3 Sentry
1x Sentinal

1x Herc
1x C17

There’s a rough guess at 53 of the aircraft.

The Griffin and Squirrel helicopters from Shawbury might add a bit of padding, and possibly 32 Sqn, but hard to see where they get another 30 RAF/RN/AAC aircraft from.

I was hoping XH558 might be involved 🙁

Edit:

Taken from: http://www.vulcantothesky.org/news/328/82/A-Salute-to-Her-Majesty.html

“Is there an official Diamond Jubilee fly-past?

“We would like XH558 to take part in the official Diamond Jubilee celebrations and are currently in discussions to make this possible,” revealed Dr.*Pleming. “Success in these negotiations would also allow us to fly for the dedication of the new Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park, should we be invited.” XH558 is one of only two Bomber Command aircraft still flying, the other being the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster, operated by the RAF.”

Didn’t realise we had that many aircraft ,how about pilots?

Ah but the bit they haven’t told us is the 75 of them will be UAVs……!!!

Planemike

I suppose that if all the data plate Spitfire ‘restorations’ are loaned to the MoD for the day, it might just be possible to make the anticipated number of participating aircraft !

Didn’t realise we had that many aircraft ,how about pilots?

This could be good for anyone in the vicinity ” The MoD will be carrying out practice runs over the west coast of North Wales between 10:00 and 12:00 on 15 and 16 May. “

So that will be our entire air fleet!!

I’ve been keeping an eye on this one for a while, will certainly be impressive. I was hoping it might have a few more “historics” in it to mark the last 60years but it is part of military review/pagent so I guess not.