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?

Myself, Mrs WM and the little wokka's were just sitting down to Sunday dinner at Odius as many of the heli's overflew us, still in formation.
Nice to see! Well done all, whatever colour!

WM

Phil R - Without wanting any rants in my inbox, even you must agree that the BBC coverage was pretty dire?

In fairness though, it would be fairly difficult to sail a big grey ship down The Mall.

Believe maybe the Harrier would have a worse gliding ability then the hawk! So if anything went wrong the hawk could possibly make the thames, the harrier couldn't.

Anyway your right the coverage was a sh**e as you come to expect from the BBC, and was reinforced by the idiot telling everyone that the dominie was used as a training a/c for ALL pilots!

The bloody tw*t

What I remember on the SHAR incident was

"Of course there are no SHARs taking part as they have a single engine and aren't allowed over London"


So... not the fact that they are out of service?

Believe maybe the Harrier would have a worse gliding ability then the hawk! So if anything went wrong the hawk could possibly make the thames, the harrier couldn't.

Anyway your right the coverage was a sh**e as you come to expect from the BBC, and was reinforced by the idiot telling everyone that the dominie was used as a training a/c for ALL pilots!

The bloody tw*t

Apologies for the lack of cut paste etc



Absolutely right. Im sure the Dominie link was the Sqn number plate - The Victors of 55 were used throughout the Falklands Campaign hence the flypast. Nothing to do with Rear Crew training - pilot training - good heavens

"BBC - Its what we do" Talk complete and utter nonsense if you ask me. Can I have my licence fee back

In a soft Irish Accent
 

Hello and welcome to BBC Points of view. It seems that some of our viewers have been left a little disappointed with the Beeb's coverage of this weekends flypast's by by our mighty Armed Forces. One viewer wrote Well that's true Mr Syncro single. You see they are nasty, noisy things and we are only there for the free beer and food afterwards. Whilst another wrote Well actually the commentator is a Polish worker on a visa from Warsaw. You are probably right about him being clueless as he is a plumber by trade and was sent to us by the Job centre. Whist Mr Scotthys was particularly upset about Adalbert's commentary style and called him a bloody t**t. Well Mr Scottyhs I can assure you that Adalbert was not bleeding in anyway during the commentary. Well that's about all for this week. Any other comments can be directed to us here at BBC points of view. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/ Oh and BTW Humour you cannot have your licence fee back you stingy person.

My daughter was over the moon today. Whilst walking back from the shop we saw the helicopter element flying towards London, then she sat with me whilst I watched the parade and flypast and then the helicopter element passed directly over the top of our MQ on the way back to Odiham. Oh and even at 4 years old her aircraft recognition is far too good to work for the BBC.;)

From here on the ground it looked very tight, especially the Junglies.:D

Good work everyone.:ok:

I was playing cricket this pm and we got 8 flypasts. Bloody wonderful. And not a crab in sight. Super. :ok:

Harriers over London
 

The answer from a MOD press release:

single engine over London

It's all elfansafety innit!!

I recall an aged spec aircrew sqn ldr who once worked for me telling tales of the Coronation flypast (600+ aircraft?) in which he partook in a Meatbox.

Biggest problem he related were the Sabres (IIRC) who had many flameout problems ......

....... on more than one occasion they heard on the formation freq:

"Mayday - Sabre c/s flameout, leaving the formation"

to be fairly swiftly followed by:

"Sabre c/s cancel Mayday - successful relight, rejoining formation!"

.... an yer tell that to't young folk of terday.......

But they probably had Richard Dimbleby doing the commentary..:ok:

Sorry for the thread drift

Was is just my imagination, or did I hear at some stage during the afternoon, losses of 16 ships and 11 helicopters being given?

I can only remember 5 ships - Sheffield, Coventry, Ardent , Antelope and Atlantic Conveyor and 4 helicopters - 3 Chinooks on Atlantic Conveyor and a Gazelle.

The Falklands provided one of the better acronyms -STUFT, as in 'Ships Taken UP from Trade'

Were there any Ppruners present on Sunday?

Apparently the unfortunate Rear Admiral, trying to keep in step with Andrew's shuffling was:

Rear Admiral Chris Parry, whose Wessex from HMS ANTRIM disabled the Argentine submarine ARA SANTA FE with two depth charges at the start of the Falklands conflict. Too badly damaged to submerge, SANTA FE ended up beaching in Grytviken harbour after further attacks with torpedo, machine gun, and missiles by helos from HMS PLYMOUTH (Wasp), HMS BRILLIANT (Lynx) and HMS ENDURANCE (two Wasps).

Interesting to see that John Nott was also on the VIP stand....disgrace, if he had got his way, we would never have got the falklands back

The Nott review confirmed the decision to proceed with the purchase of the Trident system from the USA to replace Polaris as the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent.[70] The Territorial Army and the other reserve forces were to be merged and rebuilt to meet the requirement for home defence,[71] which was also to be reinforced by a new fighter aircraft (eventually the Eurofighter programme).[72] The British Army of the Rhine was to be held at the level of 55,000 but to be re-equipped.[73] The main cuts under the Nott review were to fall on the Navy which, although it took on the Trident submarines, was to lose around one fifth of their 60 destroyers and frigates. Despite the supposed abandonment of the carrier programme, three so-called 'through deck cruisers' had been built, designated as the Invincible Class. One of these three carriers and the two amphibious ships Fearless and Intrepid were also to be cut.[74] Out-of-area, or expeditionary, warfare capacity was therefore to be further significantly reduced. With Trident, greater reliance was once again to be placed on the strategic nuclear deterrent as the counter to the Soviet threat (together with an increased submarine fleet),[75] and the overall force structure emphasised the UK's increasing expectation of acting only as part of NATO for overseas expeditionary operations

All very short sighted looking at the comments regarding no expeditionary operations....Iraq, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan....what's next.

Give praise where praise is due
 

Guys, there is a heck of a lot of whinging about how poor the BBC commentary was and why was the Dominie in the flypast, but what seems to have been forgotten was what a wonderful spectacle the whole event was!

I was there, and it was obvious to me that the events of the day took a huge amount of organisation and execution, not only by the BBC etc. but also from a lot of uniformed personnel.

Despite the political posturing regarding who and what should fly on the day, the event was topped off by a great flypast and I applaud the organiser for making it happen. Well done Mike! :D

Bring back RB
 

Is it wishful thinking to believe that, had Raymond Baxter been with us, the BBC's coverage would have been immesurably better?

I did not actaully see it, but watched the event from a vantage point in E London. I noticed that the boys from Odius were circling in their Essex box for a good 20 minutes. I realise that another tonne of Avtur fumes is unlikely to damage the brain of your average Essex boy, but why was your timing so cautious?

Skua

Were there not a load of Wessii aboard the Atlantic Conveyor aswell as the Chinooks? There was also the Navy Sea King which went down with the SAS troops (and an RAF guy) aboard.

I was there yesterday and it was a tremendous event which was well organised, well executed and had the right tone. It was humbling to chat to the veterans and to see them meeting old mates they'd not seen for many years. When the groups on Birdcage Walk were called forward to take up positions before marching on to Horseguards, they all ambled forward. Not so the RAF contingent, who marched to the spontaneous applause of the crowd, damn impressive sight guys and gals, well done.

Finally, I thought that 29 Sqn deployed to Ascension with F.4s, hence their inclusion?

Harrier vs Hawk rules
 

Believe that ACAS's decision was a fair one to not allow a Harrier down the Mall, for [mainly] the following reason:

If a Hawk suffers a catastrophic engine mechanical failure (i.e. runs to a complete grinding halt in a v short space of time) it can glide, but also as the hydraulic pressure drops in the system (which it will as the pilot manoeuvres the aircraft), the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) will deploy and spin up to allow sufficient control authority to keep turning the aircraft towards a safe open area (The Serpentine?!!!) before he/she ejects.

A Harrier does not have a RAT, therefore if the above situation arises the controls "could" possibly freeze at any point after the donk goes. This "could" prevent the daring pilot from aiming his/her aircraft into a safe place with inevitably disastrous results.....doesn't even bare thinking about and so is probably too risky. It has nothing to do with engine / aircraft reliability IMHO. Oh, and the gliding performance as intimated in previous threads is not as good as a hawk.

No airworthy CAA-registered Sea Harrier = No Sea Harrier flypast. Good to see the senior Navy FAA guys reinforcing the point that "its all about the Navy though, you know". Complete horse-sh**! Seem to remember a certain 1(Fighter) Squadron, under the command of Wg Cdr P T Squire DFC RAF, receiving Battle Honours for the South Atlantic for many great missions flown. Plenty of RAF guys flying SHARs too as well. It was all about projection of UK Military Force on the other side of the world back in '82. We'll never do it again though .....

BD

skua, might have had something to do with the fact the parade was late being marched up the mall. Probably something to do with Prince Andrew's awful attempt at marching.

But i think i remember hearing they were holding off so everyone was in place for the fly past!