Airforces

96 // OCTOBER 2018 #367 http://www.airforcesmonthly.com

‘0’ was the overall leader for all the jets – a

task that fell to Officer Commanding No 29

Squadron, Wg Cdr Andy Chisholm. The ‘1’

was appropriately led by OC No 1 (Fighter)

Squadron and the other ‘0’ by OC No XI

(Fighter) Squadron. Having completed a

number of events in the simulators the first live

flight was conducted on December 6, 2017,

when 10 aircraft flew a ‘0’ with the ‘outrigger

leaders’ for the ‘1’ and the other ‘0’. Wanting

to keep the plan a secret, most of this sortie

was conducted over the sea, however the

aircraft recovered to Coningsby in formation,

triggering speculation over the plans.

The final event

There was no further live flying until the lead-up

to the actual London date, when two full-scale

rehearsals were flown on June 27 and 29 over

the North Sea. Eight aircraft were detached

south from RAF Lossiemouth to operate from

Coningsby alongside 24 resident jets allocated

to the flypast. “We wanted to incur minimum

impact on the Lossiemouth Wing,” explains

Sqn Ldr Child. “Around 150 personnel and

eight jets detached here for three weeks for the

main event. The manning was planned with

11 pilots from Coningsby and 11 from Lossie,

including at least one pilot from each frontline

squadron and two exchange officers.” The

pilots chosen represented a mix of ranks and

experience levels, with one having only recently

graduated from the Operational Conversion

Unit course. It was intended to make a

second run on Friday July 13 at the Royal

International Air Tattoo and so the key positions

were retained for both events, although

other slots were changed in order to give as

many pilots as possible a taste of the action.

Unfortunately, thunderstorms at RAF Fairford

forced the cancellation of the RIAT flypast,

but London on July 10 went without a hitch.

“The weather for the practice days and the

main flypast over London was really good,”

says Sqn Ldr Child. “All of our planning was

based on worst case scenario – we aimed to

be able to take the formation elements up and

back through cloud, we allowed for crosswinds

here at Coningsby, we took into account

Right: The plan comprised three separate parts that would then merge to create the overall shape.

No 29 Squadron Below: Wg Cdr Andy Chisholm leads the mass briefing ahead of one of the final rehearsal

missions, talking through the formation references. Jamie Hunter

every eventuality. On one of the June practice

sorties we all flew an instrument recovery.”

How they flew it

The only pilot not transfixed on another jet was

Wg Cdr Chisholm. The ‘outrigger’ leaders flew

their references off of his aircraft. “One of the

hardest jobs was making sure they had same

heading, so Wg Cdr Chisholm was regularly

calling out his heading. All the other pilots

were flying manually on the aircraft ahead

using line astern and echelon references to

maintain a symmetrical shape. The key was

having a stable and constant power setting.”

What followed was an incredible feat of

timing and precision flying – made possible

by a finely detailed and cleverly executed

plan. “The main challenge was to deconflict

the 100 aircraft in the massive flypast,” says

Child. “We flew numerous rehearsals linking

all four simulators at Coningsby together

to practise the timings for marshalling

and then leaving the holds and joining the

massive aircraft train heading for London.”

94-97 Typhoon AFM Oct2018.indd 96 9/7/2018 3:07:47 PM