Pictures from Fly Navy 100 Helicopter Flypast

As part of the Fly Navy 100 series of events, there was a “Centenary Flypast” today which saw a selection of Royal Navy choppers (apparently one of each of their frontline models) fly in formation over Greenwich, and HMS Illustrious which is moored here for a week. I thought long and hard about the best place to capture this moment and decided that wandering across to Island Gardens would be my best bet. Once I was over there, it didn’t feel like such a great move as the helicopters were so high, it wasn’t really possibe to capture much Greenwich scenery in the background which is what I was hoping to get.

I heard the occasional snippet of commentary drifting across the river so I think on that side it may have been a more informed experience. But across the river we got to see the marching band on Lusty strike up and perform some of their greatest hits (“Rule Britannia”, “God Save The Queen”… that kind of thing) for a lucky group of spectators onboard.

I’d have to say the Flypast didn’t really live up to its billing. It was over pretty quickly and they were so high up, it was hard to see them in any detail and I don’t think there was the 40 that we were expecting to see, unless the Navy has some stealth ‘copters available to them! I heard one guy call it “underwhelming” and I think that may be the right word for it.

Looking around at some of the camera equipment on display around me, my Canon Powershot G9 seemed distinctly underpowered, but here’s some of what I got.

Here’s a video I put together with images of the flypast and other stuff I saw, such as boats on the river and the band on HMS Illustrious who are just about audible.

See also: Darryl’s coverage at 853 and also IanVisits.co.uk