Yesterday, I was in central London to take she that must be obeyed for afternoon tea at the Ritz. She thought this a great idea as she had apparently given me 25 years of blissful marriage.
Having arrived early, we decided to kill some time and found ourselves heading for Trafalgar Square, where we had heard that Eddie Izzard was finishing his marathon for charity. Also, out of curiosity, of what was occuring on the 4th plynth.
We arrived at about 1600hrs and left at about 1645hrs. During this time it was raining heavily with 8/8 cloud cover. Cloud base seemed to be about 800 -1000 ft.
I was watching a small helicopter (something like a Squirell) flying around the square. I guessed it was from Sky News or something, waiting for 'our Eddie' to arrive, as there were quite a few press about including BBC news.
The pilot appeared to have to have to keep adjusting height, to stay out of cloud.
I was then aware that the Squirrell (?) had moved away from the square and a much larger helicopter arrived, flew around the square and then slowly flew down towards Buckingham Palace. This one looked military, possibly a Merlin or slightly bigger.
After the second helicopter had gone, the Squirrell (?) came back and continued flying around the square.
It appeared to me that both aircraft were aware of each others presence, if not visually, then through ATC etc and gave each other a sensibly wide birth.
A short while later however, I was surprised and alarmed to see the Squirell (?) at one side of the square and a 4 engined jet (similar to and probably from, the City Airport) appear, at what seemed like little or no height separation and a horizontal distance of a hundred yards or so from each other.
I realise things always look different from ground level, but given that cloud base was so low and visibilty so poor, I was surprised to see these two aircraft in such close proximity to each other.
My impression was that the two helicopters had appeared to be very aware of each other and had taken measures to avoid each other at an early stage, but that the second incident wasn't as well separated.
I mention this out of interest, as I'm sure my 'ground perception' view was different to that of those in the air or at ATC and someone can throw a bit of light on what was going on.
I await with baited breath. Oh, and in case you were wondering - (4th plynth) - there was a little old lady dressed all in red, sitting in a wheelchair with red balloons tied to it, whilst she read some poetry about cats !! Poor old dear was absolutely soaked through, but at least she had her moment of fame.
