Spitfire & Typhoon Formation

[Interested Passenger]

Flew over Milton Keynes at 12:00 heading N-NE

I'm guessing it was a return flight from yesterdays Queens Birthday Flypast.

Certainly raised a few heads:ok:

[Gonzo]

Positioning for the run in to Runnymede for the Magna Carta ceremony today.

[teeteringhead]

They displayed at the Cosford Air Show yesterday - amazingly impressive!

[captain_flynn]

I saw the Spitfire and Typhoon fly over Beanhill, Milton Keynes. Sadly I ran outside a bit too late and they were heading off in to the distance! Lovely noise though.

We also had a Spitfire fly over twice on Thursday evening (it was P7350 of the BBMF)

[Reverserbucket]

Attended the funeral of an elderly relative yesterday in West London and at 1200 a solo Typhoon flew directly overhead the chapel at lowish level precisely as the coffin was leaving the hearse. He'd served in the RAF in his youth and I think he would have been quite touched!


Would this have been positioning for Runnymede Gonzo? There was a higher run eastbound from the direction of EGLD, right turn towards Northolt then the lower one.

[pax britanica]

Gonzo

The Runnymede flypast looks like an interesting challenge for the LHR /LTMA controllers. Care to share how it was done, after all a large formation flyby 3 miles SW of LHR is not exactly an everyday event.

Thanks in advance and for your always interesting and informative comments to us interested parties
PB

[Gonzo]

For a time before the actual Flypast, both the Typhoon and Spit were both doing 'lazy' orbits of Northolt, both separately and then in formation, so this is probably what you saw Reverserbucket

In terms of planning and execution, I wasn't involved in planning this one, but I've been involved in other similar activities. Basically it is a negotiation between the military organisation, NATS, the CAA and other interested parties. Some activities have a higher priority than others, given the meaning of the occasion. Once the route and times are agreed, each airport/unit has to perform its own impact assessment in terms of the length of stopping departures and/or arrivals.

The flight path crossed over the threshold of 09L so we stopped both departures and arrivals for a period, and this is expressed in terms of 'last departure must be airborne by time xx'. So from that point of view it's very simple!

It's a bit more difficult for Swanwick to sort things out to fulfil the 'last arrival must land no later than xx, but again the estimates of landing time they work on are pretty accurate.

[El Bunto]

Seems an odd pairing.

Can't see any direct connection between Typhoon and Spitfire other than they were both RAF fighters.

Typhoon and Hurricane would make sense, both 'products' of Hawker ( Typhoon via the Hawker-Siddeley designs which led to EAP ).

[londonman]

Gonzo makes an interesting point. I remember when the first commercial flight of Concorde post-fire from Heathrow was due. We knew what time it was supposed to take-off and waited on one of the bridges over the M4. And waited. And waited. Other planes came in to land and take-off but still no sign.

We were just about to abandon the 'vigil' thinking that perhaps we had missed it when suddenly we became aware of silence in the skies. Nothing seemed to be landing and nothing seemed to be taking off. Until with a roar, that beautiful white bird took to the skies once more and brought a tear to this old fogies eyes. I like to think that the skies were cleared for this very special occasion.

[pax britanica]

Thanks Gonzo,

Yes thinking about it , it makes sense that the formation sort of crossed LHR -N-S to minimise time in the way of regular traffic so LHR Tower looked after the take off side just but stopping them and I guess some inbounds got an extra 'trip around the hold' .
Thanks for the answer-btw do you folks miss the old tower at all?

PB