|
Not all aspects of Royal International Air Tattoo 2008 were cancelled. Friday 11th July saw the official RAF 90th Anniversary celebrations take place at RAF Fairford in somewhat stormy surroundings. Paul Johnson/Flightline UK reports . All photography copyright of Author.
The Royal Air Force was formed by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service on the 1st April 1918. Ever since that day, the Royal Air Force has been involved in operations around the world. It is the world's oldest independent Air Force. In those early days of the RAF, many of the operations took place place in the Middle East over the skies of what we now know as Iraq and Afganistan. 90 years on the RAF are back in those areas in support of coalition ground forces.
With Air Power now a primary asset in any military or humanitarian operations, it is very fitting to mark the achievements of the RAF over the last 90 years.
The team at RIAT was justifyably proud that that RIAT had been chosen to host the official celebrations of the Royal Air Force's 90th Anniversary. RIAT 2008 had always had the anniversary as one it's major themes but the decision to host the celebrations at Fairford were the icing on the cake and a sign of the high regard of the RAF for RIAT. The event attracted the attention of the press and notably marked the return of national BBC television coverage to RIAT. Further coverage was seen on national and local TV News reports. The last national BBC television coverage for the International Air Tattoo had been for IAT 1993 which marked the 75th Anniversary
of the RAF.
Preparations for the events held on the Friday started several weeks before RIAT. The centrepiece for the celebrations was a the presentation of new colours to both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force Regiment by HM The Queen before a massed flypast and aerial pageant. "Colours" are the cerenomonial flag for a armed service that is often paraded at state occasions. Their are awarded to services every 15 years to mark the achievements. The last presentation took place at RAF Marham in April 1993 which like Fairford was an event marred by bad weather.
Personnel taking part in the parade were drawn from all quarters of the RAF and were stationed at nearby RAF Innsworth just outside Gloucester for rehearsals. Last minute rehearsals at RAF Fairford on the Wednesday before the parade had to be abandoned because of the extreme wet weather. The ceremony was opened officially by the arrival of HM the Queen and a flypast by four Eurofighter Typhoons.
The Colours parade remained a private event for invited guests of the RAF. However, as with any Friday at RIAT, the showground was open to the Friends and other invited visitors that were able to watch proceedings from the static park or on a giant screen at the centre of the RAF 90th Anniversary area. It was the 5th time the Queen had presented Colours during her reign.
As the cerenomy drew to a close and
as the Queen was driven away to the hospitality area, there were dramatic scenes as the heavens opened and completely saturated the parade ground and everyone around it. Things weren't looking good for the flypast and short aerial pagaent sheduled for after lunch!
The first activity relating to the flypasts were the departure of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight to meet up with the flypast and take their place within the formation. They did so in yet more heavy rain. The BBMF don't normally operate in such conditions as rain not only damages the paintwork but also can damage propellors. A gap had been forecast for the time of the actual flypast and the crews had to push on to make their timings.
The flypast started with a solitary Chinook HC2 which was leading a number of the slower types. Helicopters were the theme in the next few sections of the flypast with a formation comprising of two Merlin HC3 and two Puma HC1 battlefield support helicopters. Also flying on it's own was one of the RAF's Search and Rescue Sea King HAR3A helicopters.
The first fixed wing assets to take part were a mixed formation of RAF Tutor T1s and Slingsby T-67M Firefly aircraft from RAF Cranwell and RAF Barkston Heath. The Lincolnshire theme continued with the return of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The flypast was now entering it's second stage with the fast and heavier types now starting to appear in the murk off to the north of RAF Fairford.
First of the large formations saw a C-130K Hercules C1 leading two King Air B200s and two further Dominie T1 aircraft. Further training aircraft formed the next two formations with nine Tucano T1 from RAF Linton on Ouse and seven Hawk T1 aircraft from RAF Valley. Three formations of "heavies" followed with a VC-10, a E-3D Sentry AEW1, a Sentinal R1 and a pair of HS125 CC2 in quick succession. The collection of heavies was finished with both a Nimrod MR2 and Tristar flanked by a pair of Hawks each. These Hawks were from No 100 Sqaudron at RAF Leeming.
The final sucession of formations saw some of the RAF's more illustrious front line types. First to appear were nine Typhoon F2/T1A aircraft from RAF Coningsby. They were followed by four Harrier GR7/9 strike aircraft from RAF Wittering before the final formations of nine Tornado F3s and nine Tornado GR4 aircraft. The flypast was concluded by the Red Arrows trailing thick plumes of red, white and blue smoke.
As soon as the flypast finished the finale to the celebrations got underway - a brief aerial pagaent. The pagaent started with the genesis of the RAF represented by the Great War Display Team. The team were operating from RFC Rendcomb (Home of the Team Guinot wingwalkers) which is just a few miles to the north of Fariford. Unfortunatlely for the team the replica Sopwith Triplane over turned in a field of crops the next day following an a precautionary landing. The RAF's next major engagements in the second world war were represented by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Rather than perform their standard style of display, the flight remained in formation for a number of passes before landing. The current and future of the RAF was the subject opf the final act in the pagaent with four Typhoon F2/FGR4 performing a number of different formations before a dramatic split at crowd centre.
RIAT however, was not going to be outdone by the "private"events of Friday afternoon.As well as every display aircraft including the role demonstration team, there was an impressive showing in the static park. This
was possibly the finest gathering of RAF aircraft past and present (even future if you include the Hawk T2) at any airshow this year. Like the other "big" shows of the year, Fairford was graced with the appearance of the "Spitfire Hawk" from
19(R) Squadron based at RAF Valley as well as a number of aircraft from the flypast - below is just a selection of the RAF aircraft gathered at Fairford.
|
