The timing of the parade flypast
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
TTN, they were still making triangular ash trays at that time. I think come BCBS they were back filling Valiants and building up Vulcans with the Victor at steady state with only 4 Sqns and running down.
Parade ‘choreography’ can help too. Not sure whether it’s still the case but the IOT graduation flypast used to take place during a general salute, which was preceded by a minute or two of standing at ease. This was ‘flex time’ for any earlier overrun. A SNCO attendant at one end of the audience would signal the parade commander at the appropriate time to order the general salute such that the flypast coincided perfectly.
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Not quite a planned fly by, but, it does involve immaculate timing and parades.
Llangurig ( many of you will have flown over said village at a rapid rate of knots ) and the collective future of the RAF's engineering elite have been relocated from the Gulag in Bucks to be let loose for 10 days on an unsuspecting Welsh public. The camp, laid out in true military order on the banks of the R.Wye comes complete with flag and pole.
Enter, our hero. Clad in pristine greens ( this was 69 ) and with the very thin and equally pristine rank bar ( this may offer a clue ) barely visible, holding an impressive shepherd's crook stick marginally shorted than himself, who decides to address the suitably underwhelmed apprenti during the morning parade.
The morale boosting commences when, round the corner from the North appears an F-4..which sort of jinks a bit and then gets a bit faster, and, erm, appears to lose a bit of altitude....cue over the top of the parade and on goes the noise from the back...at which point our fearless future leader hits the ground in shock, as we could see the F-4 coming....and he couldn't.
The second pass involved the troops exchanging "hand signals" with the Nav before more noise and a disappearing F-4 made everybody's day....with one possible notable exception.
Llangurig ( many of you will have flown over said village at a rapid rate of knots ) and the collective future of the RAF's engineering elite have been relocated from the Gulag in Bucks to be let loose for 10 days on an unsuspecting Welsh public. The camp, laid out in true military order on the banks of the R.Wye comes complete with flag and pole.
Enter, our hero. Clad in pristine greens ( this was 69 ) and with the very thin and equally pristine rank bar ( this may offer a clue ) barely visible, holding an impressive shepherd's crook stick marginally shorted than himself, who decides to address the suitably underwhelmed apprenti during the morning parade.
The morale boosting commences when, round the corner from the North appears an F-4..which sort of jinks a bit and then gets a bit faster, and, erm, appears to lose a bit of altitude....cue over the top of the parade and on goes the noise from the back...at which point our fearless future leader hits the ground in shock, as we could see the F-4 coming....and he couldn't.
The second pass involved the troops exchanging "hand signals" with the Nav before more noise and a disappearing F-4 made everybody's day....with one possible notable exception.
Last edited by Krystal n chips; 7th Apr 2018 at 07:53.
FED,
'There was another video where an F4 went between the hangers. I don't know whether that was a flypast or a general 'handling exercise'.
This was at St Athan in 1986 and was flown by the then chief test pilot there. It was the custom on the post major servicing delivery flight to give a flypast to the team that worked the aircraft for the preceding 4 months. The gap between the hangars in question was 200ft.
'There was another video where an F4 went between the hangers. I don't know whether that was a flypast or a general 'handling exercise'.
This was at St Athan in 1986 and was flown by the then chief test pilot there. It was the custom on the post major servicing delivery flight to give a flypast to the team that worked the aircraft for the preceding 4 months. The gap between the hangars in question was 200ft.
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FED,
'There was another video where an F4 went between the hangers. I don't know whether that was a flypast or a general 'handling exercise'.
This was at St Athan in 1986 and was flown by the then chief test pilot there. It was the custom on the post major servicing delivery flight to give a flypast to the team that worked the aircraft for the preceding 4 months. The gap between the hangars in question was 200ft.
'There was another video where an F4 went between the hangers. I don't know whether that was a flypast or a general 'handling exercise'.
This was at St Athan in 1986 and was flown by the then chief test pilot there. It was the custom on the post major servicing delivery flight to give a flypast to the team that worked the aircraft for the preceding 4 months. The gap between the hangars in question was 200ft.
I was there at the time & remember on one occasion a large seagull flying between the hangers as the Phantom passed. Luckily it did not get hit by the aircraft, but the sight of it rapidly rotating in a vortex was quite a sight to see!
I was WO RTS. OC Ops at Halton was in radio contact with the ac and in visual sight of me. He would give me five mins on the watch, I would nod to the mt driver at two minutes who would then drive the VSO onto the parade ground. Just enough time to get onto the dais arrange his dress then general salute and wrooooooom!
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I did an approved “flypast” at a wedding in Bangor, N Ireland.
We loitered for ages until the crewman said “They’re coming out now!!!”
I flew past low, actually looooooooow! Fantastic!
Or it would have been if we had got the right church and wedding...........
We loitered for ages until the crewman said “They’re coming out now!!!”
I flew past low, actually looooooooow! Fantastic!
Or it would have been if we had got the right church and wedding...........
Seem to remember some very 'spirited' graduation flypasts at Linton in late 82 early 83 - the Buccs were the favourite participants as they were always faster and lower than anyone else. One came between the hangars (lower that the top) in a hard turn as doing it wings level would have been a bit tight!
Happy days and nothing like it to better enthuse us students to work harder to be 'that guy'.
Happy days and nothing like it to better enthuse us students to work harder to be 'that guy'.
"Or it would have been if we had got the right church and wedding..........."
Reminds me of a fly past of Victor tankers and Lightnings due over our factory at 12:15 one day. TV cameras organised and, bang on time, there they were. Right over my wife's school about 4 miles to the south.
Reminds me of a fly past of Victor tankers and Lightnings due over our factory at 12:15 one day. TV cameras organised and, bang on time, there they were. Right over my wife's school about 4 miles to the south.
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Apparently a Buccaneer flew so low and close past a control tower that they could read the writing on the wing, it said ‘no step!’
The full story was on this forum ISTR.
The full story was on this forum ISTR.
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The way we did it with the Lanc was to set up a holding pattern a fair bit down range. One I was thinking of was using the flood barrier prior to advancing on the pool of London where SWMBO was waiting to announce the price of the Rolls Royce shares. I had to be level with her and she was in the Hayes Wharf building. This demanded a rather low pass (actually a little lower than the Belfast's masts) I also had to pull up a little to safely clear London Bridge. I must point out that this was what she had demanded and none of our VSOs argued! It was fun though. I dont suppose it could happen today.
FI.
In my airborne experience of flypasts and parades, there are really two main timing methods. Either, the flypast occurs at a fixed time or, someone co-ordinates timing updates from the ground to the lead aircraft. The fixed time method seems to work more with the large formal flypasts, usually cast in stone and the co-ordination is done by a worried looking chap who gets the ground event to the correct place at the right time.
OTOH, events such as BoB drinkies and AOC's will have a nominal timing but, the participating aircraft will normally be in a timing hold about 10Nm away and should be able to adjust to suit the call from the guy on the ground.
Tales (experience) of cock-ups in the air are comprehensive and, make me wonder why I got duped into doing so many!
OAP
In my airborne experience of flypasts and parades, there are really two main timing methods. Either, the flypast occurs at a fixed time or, someone co-ordinates timing updates from the ground to the lead aircraft. The fixed time method seems to work more with the large formal flypasts, usually cast in stone and the co-ordination is done by a worried looking chap who gets the ground event to the correct place at the right time.
OTOH, events such as BoB drinkies and AOC's will have a nominal timing but, the participating aircraft will normally be in a timing hold about 10Nm away and should be able to adjust to suit the call from the guy on the ground.
Tales (experience) of cock-ups in the air are comprehensive and, make me wonder why I got duped into doing so many!
OAP
Avoid imitations
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Originally Posted by [email protected]
Seem to remember some very 'spirited' graduation flypasts at Linton in late 82 early 83 - the Buccs were the favourite participants as they were always faster and lower than anyone else. One came between the hangars (lower that the top) in a hard turn as doing it wings level would have been a bit tight!
Happy days and nothing like it to better enthuse us students to work harder to be 'that guy'.
Happy days and nothing like it to better enthuse us students to work harder to be 'that guy'.
The "infamous" Cranwell F4 flyby.
I was given the thankless task of trying to convince the perpetrator (NOT a JW) to confess that he'd actually screwed up and never intended to fly (a) so low and (b) rotate so early. I was wasting my time. He insisted that this sort of flypast happened all the time and he was only doing what lots of people did. Dumb.
The reviewing officer for our graduation at Henlow was the Queen Mother and inevitably the latter part of the course was sacrificed to practise parades which we were endless. Unbeknown to us there was a large formation flypast planned (15 ship I think) and as part of the planning one of the Regt officers was monitoring each practise to get a feel for the timings. It would seem that our practises were getting quicker and quicker that is until we did the real thing when we were slower than on any previous occasion. This caused great confusion and resulted in a large formation orbiting somewhere in the vicinity trying to lose time and reschedule the arrival time to coincide with our much delayed marchpast. I have never found out the details of what happened and it would be interesting to hear from anyone who took part in this flypast.
Jack
In my airborne experience of flypasts and parades, there are really two main timing methods. Either, the flypast occurs at a fixed time or, someone co-ordinates timing updates from the ground to the lead aircraft.