Over 30 aircraft from the UK Armed Forces recently conducted a rehearsal over RAF College Cranwell in preparation for Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s Coronation Flypast.

The real thing will take place on Saturday 6 May 2023 over Buckingham Palace.

The Royal Air Force, British Army and Royal Navy were all represented in the rehearsal, which included the practice of formations that will be part of the Coronation celebrations.

The full flypast will include more than 60 aircraft, including the Red Arrows and Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and will take place over London.

The rehearsal took place over RAF Cranwell’s College Hall, which stood in for Buckingham Palace.

The first aircraft, a Juno HT1 from RAF Shawbury, flew over College Hall at 14:30 BST, and the full display was reviewed by Air Vice-Marshal Mark Flewin, the Air Officer Commanding the Royal Air Force’s No.1 Group.

You can read more on this here.

Tom Dunlop
Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.

14 COMMENTS

  1. I was lucky to see most of it above the farm on Tuesday, very impressed with the “heavies”. C17, Voyager, A400 and Rivet Joint plus a C130. A bit “light” on fighters which just highlighted how bare the cupboard actually is.

    • Perhaps more apropos to include C-130J in a ‘missing man’ formation, to reflect upcoming events? 🤔😳😉

      • Aye it would. Spent many hours on “Fat Albert” a few years ago, cannot understand the decision to ditch them. Still, this is the UK lol.

    • yeah i don’t know what for but 2 x voyagers with tanker callsigns (9250 & 52) went to Lajes yesterday now currently of SE coast of Canada flying at 28K which is usually tanking altitude not showing what they are trailling though RED Flag 1 finished in Feb be unusual to do 2 couple months apart. #Update Atlas flying behind as trail Sweeper so def tanking Fast Jets, as Atlas came out of Marham so guess F-35’s so what with Cyprus Typhoons and the Air Policing in Baltic someone needs to spell it out to the idiots at top need more airframes (couple Sqns of Typhoons) please.

  2. I saw the 50th anniversary Battle of Britain flypast in September 1990. (Blimey, 33 years ago!)
    From memory, 167 aircraft flew over Buckingham Palace – including lots of fast-jets.
    Changed days!

    • Modern accuracy of weapons mean we do need a lot less airframes to achieve the same result. You can see the impact of guided vs unguided bomb in Ukraine. Carpet bombing required to hit a target with unguided Vs 1 guided, meaning one jet can do the job of many. Saying that our fast jet numbers have been cut more than comparable nations.

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