EIIR
 

I'm surprised no-one here has congratulated the pilots in the EIIR Tucano flypast.

As an ex-'occasional' formater and partaker in those great, thrashing, numbers flypasts too, the shot I saw on tele' was EXCELLENT.

Well done to all, leaders, formaters, planners, whippers, groundcrew etc etc. (Not forgetting the Authorising Officer!)

CONGRATULATIONS! Hip hip old chap, carry on.

Yeah, looked well good, as did the rest of the flying displays on the day. Here's to the next Jubilee!

Should we be more impressed that so many managed to get into air at any one time?

I read the other day that King George VIth had to stand for 6 hours watching the RN sail past at some celebration or other, while the best Grey Funnel lines could muster last week was 4 ships. 'Says more about our political masters than about our veritable fishy-types tho.

Call me a traitor but I for one am glad we didn't hold a fleet review this year.
In 1953 the review was 197 RN warships - most of which were reserve fleet ships towed into position without a proper crew, towed back and scrapped !
1977 a similar situation occurred with 112 ships.

The RN today has around 129 ships plus tugs etc. So yes if we recalled every ship we had we could put on a decent (say 100 ship) review. BUT WHY WOULD WE WANT TO?????

I can think of 101 better uses for our ships than watching them line up and cheer ship - you know boring things like taking part in the war on terror or disaster relief. The RN could have held a decent fleet review but sensibly in my opinion chose not to. Thank god for that I say!!

On a completely unrelated note - I was vv impressed by the RAF parachute team that were jumping over RMCS / JSCSC last night - great show, flyby by the C130 was even better :)

How about we send the Royal's a brochure every few years with pictures of our ships and planes. That way we can carry on using them in those dratted wars that keep cropping up.

I suggest a supplement akin to those found in the Daily Mail.

:)

Well done guys..good to see...hope the back seats were full of non-aircrew types!

Jim lad
A flyby by a herc at Shriv? It was a J model as i believe as they came in to Brize yesterday. Its good to see the J flying at Low Level at last - is this well known - maybe their clearances arecoming quicker than we first thought!?

Don't have a clue what model it was - all i know is it looked like a herc that was flying 30feet above my head :)
Very impressive sight though - I think it was the falcons or whatever the name of the RAF parachute team is as well that were around. Very impressive show though chaps.

I remember the last EIIR I saw at Abingdon in '77 - seem to remember it was JPs and one of them [bottm of the stroke on the 'R' IIRC being a tad out of spacing. All the purists tutted while YHM beamed.

The RAF Falcons did indeed do a cracking good display to open the JSCSC Purple Ball. The flypast (90 degrees off from the windline and display run in - nice one!) was the icing on the cake.
Shame the 2 girlies can't jump coz they are too light for the team's parachutes and smaller 'chutes cannot be made available but thats another issue.

Cracking show, I'm alive and I wish I could remember the rest of the words. Tum de tum, tum de tum etc