Heading mall-wards?
 

Why are there lots of military aircraft flying over my head?

They usually do that when they're flying up the Mall.

Oh look, there go the Reds. And hey, they've even managed to get a whole Nimrod in the air at once!

Phil

Live on the beeb now.

Only just caught last 5 mins of it, but some commodore (don't know which), was lamenting the lack of a sea harrier in the fly past (perhaps an understandable shame), but then started a minor whinge about how the navy pilots were near the back, then on a final note bleated that "its really all about the navy you know" - basically letting all know he was somewhat irritated that the RAF appeared to be taking part at all. How sad & bitter. Anyone know who it was?

Sadly, similarly to yesterday's commentary lot of inaccuracy and waffle from the BBC pundits. i.e RAF 203 Sqn Seaking

What a pig's ear of a coverage by the Beeb.

The director was more interested in showing the people on the ground, and forgot to shoot images of the flypast.

Whatever happened to the helicopter shots showing the flypast from the air, or having an onboard camera.

As well as having amateur politicians, we now have amateur cameramen.

not having a knock at the navy or the BBC, but no mention of the GR3's .

May be having spent long days getting them ready for use on the carriers and seeing them off from Wittering. They just went as far as St Mawgan for the summer.

Or any of the present incumbents?

Typhoon and Apache???

Must be a representation thing?

Bbc Rubbish
 

Well after watching the poor coverage of the Queens Birthday flypast along with the coverage of the FI fly past, I am convinced that nobody at the BBC cares about the flying side of the days.
The Queens Birthday only managed to make the highlights with poor commentry, whilst the FI fly past made the main program but again with poor commentry:
Why is there no faith in the Harrier as a single engine aircraft?
If there is a problem with single engines how can the Reds continue to fly.
There was no in cockpit shots from the biger aircraft.
And my main gripe,
The Typhoons were from 3(F) Sqn and not 29.
Well done however for the guys who took part both on the ground and in the air.

Laugh? I nearly fell off my chair when the Beeb commentator said that there were no Sea Harriers in the flypast because they were 'unreliable and were not allowed to fly over London'

Clueless - where do they get these people?!

BBC Rubbish
 

Well after watching the poor coverage of the Queens Birthday flypast along with the coverage of the FI fly past, I am convinced that nobody at the BBC cares about the flying side of the days.
The Queens Birthday only managed to make the highlights with poor commentry, whilst the FI flypast made the main program but again with poor commentry:
Why is there no faith in the Harrier as a single engine aircraft? is it as unreliable as stated?
If there is a problem with single engines how can the Reds continue to fly.
There was no in cockpit shots from the biger aircraft.

And my main gripe,
The Typhoons were from 3(F) Sqn and not 29.

Well done however for the guys who took part both on the ground and in the air.

I thought they might be refering to the specified area, hence no Gazelle or Scout (John G and the DFC etc) but that got blown away with the Reds (has it got an APU and does that count??):confused:

Must look out for the job next year, pity as I like Dan Snow.

One Commodore Neill Thomas CBE DSC (801 Sqn RNAS, HMS HERMES) - a fine representative of Royal Navy thinking being 400 years of tradition unmarred by progress. The most annoying part of this interview however was its timing - showing it when they did meant there was no coverage of the RAF veterans marching past HRH. Even more shameful IMO than the meaningless waffle that accompanied the flypast - though I thought that 203(R) Sqn DID supply the Sea King?
But kudos to those service personnel and veterans who took part on the ground and in the air. :ok:

It was Commodore Neil Thomas who was on 800 Sqn during the war. I thought his comments were rather inappropriate as the flypast seemed to have as much RN participation as was feasible. If he really did mean what he said then he has forgotten that about a third of the SHAR force were RAF pilots, one of whom scored the highest number of kills.

The commentators were typically inept and totally fouled up the explanations that certain elements were participating to represent the contribution of other units/types. They didn't even manage to associate the Duke of York with his particular aircraft type - something that the average viewer would perhaps find interesting. As usual the Hercules had grown into a "gigantic" and "massive" transporter. They also stated that the single-engined Harrier was not "trustworthy" enough to be allowed to fly over London! Out of curiosity why are Hawks allowed but Harriers aren't? Glide range?

I bet the formation leaders had a wonderful few minutes after being told to delay as the march-past was still going-on. However, the best bit was seeing the comedy marching by the senior officer next to the Duke of York. They were both variously out-of-step with the main RN party and spent ages looking at their feet before the admiral put on a hilarious skipping display to try and get back instep (failing). All live on TV, poor bugger!

Whilst having less and less confidence in the accuracy of the BBC reporting these days I feel they may be being blamed for others errors. Who told them about any unreliabilty etc of the Sea Harrier or which Sqns the Typhoons were from? Most likely some Civil serpent/Adminer on Mod Ground tour would have sent over some words for the Beeb chap to read out. I am sure even the Beeb would not have just plucked those phrases out of the air

From memory I think there is some truth to the fact that all Harrier "probablity of mishap" statistics are an order of magnitude worse than most fast jets, be they single or twin engine. No doubt those in the know may comment, but it is fair to say that they are a bit of a special case. If I was to speculate, I'd hazard its because it is a) single engined, b) has an extremely high peformance (power/weight) engine which is consequently less reliable than "ordinary" turbofan/jets (e.g. than a hawk adour for example), and c) has very poor glide characteritics following a engine failure.

greycoat
Whats wrong with a 203 Sqn Sea King?

The point about SHAR unreliablity is, I suspect, probably a digest by a BBC researcher of some of the observations on the Sea Harrier at Falklands Anniversary Thread.

Imagine the raw data from that thread, precised by a researcher, then passed on to Dan Snow - who at least has some interest in matters military -who'd then add his own interpretation, and you can understand where the error started to creep in.

And it wasn't Neil Thomas's finest hour, I fear - I could see his point, which I took to be that it was a pity that an RN fast jet wasn't leading the flypast, since the domination by RAF aircraft might lead to the impression that the FAA didn't do much, but he he put it spectacularly badly, I thought.

The Apache were flown by 656 Sqn AAC who, in addition to their exploits in Afghanistan, were the Army Air Corps squadron involved during the retaking of the Faklands. Representing themselves therefore I guess!

Scout & Gazelle
 

The Scout and Gazelle that were at the Military Pagent at Colchester yesterday carried out their own flypast. Both Aircraft returned to MW via the heli-routes. Funny thing, both being single engined, neither one didn't have a problem. Saw the interview with the OC 3 BAS, a shame the aircraft he commanded in his Sqn at the time were not represented. Still the RAF....:mad:! No I won't go down that avenue,

Archimedes,
But the flypast was led by RN Sea Kings; a genuine still-serving Falklands war type. Even if it were possible why would RN Harrier GR9s (only a "representative") be more appropriate? Unless he meant to have a dig about the SHAR retirement?