Diamond Jubilee Flypast

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has approved a request from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to impose a Temporary Airspace Restriction around a large military flypast over Windsor on Saturday 19 May 2012 to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The flypast will comprise two separate aircraft formations – nine Typhoon fighter jets open the event, followed later by a large mixed formation which will include two formations of Tucano and Hawk aircraft; The Red Arrows; and aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. In all there will be a total of 85 aircraft taking part in the flypasts.

Two Temporary Airspace Restrictions or RA(T)s will be in force from 09:30 to 11:30 hours (UTC) and from 09:50 to 11:50 hours (UTC) on 19 May and affect a broad corridor of airspace from the South Coast to west London, corresponding to the route the formation will fly to reach Windsor, and then to the north and northwest of Windsor to facilitate the dispersal of the aircraft. The RA(T) can be viewed and downloaded from this chart.

The CAA said the RA(T)s would be necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft involved in the formation as well as that of other airspace users. The MoD will be carrying out practice runs over the west coast of North Wales between 10:00 and 12:00 on 15 and 16 May.

Impact On Fairoaks

Part of the RA(T) consists of Area C which is located immediately south of the Fairoaks ATZ and is active from 09:30 to 11:30 UTC. It extends from SFC-2500 AMSL and will result in all operations from Fairoaks being subject to clearance from Swanwick Military. Recent discussions with the CAA Airspace Utilisation Section have indicated that such a clearance is extremely unlikely and as a result, unless there is any further change, the airfield management has little choice but to temporarily close the ATZ to traffic for the period 09:30 - 11:30 UTC on Saturday 19 May.

Operations will still be running as normal either side of these times. Extra pre-flight planning should be taken by those intending to depart Fairoaks before the 09:30 UTC closure, to ensure their planned route does not pass through any of the RA(T) which stretches south of Fairoaks towards Goodwood and also north of the Heathrow CTR towards Oxford.

Full information on the flypast is available from the following Aeronautical Information Circulars.

AIC M 041/2012: "Restriction of Flying Regulations - Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Flypast, Windsor, Berkshire 19 May 2012"

AIC M 040/2012: "Restriction of Flying Regulations - Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Flypast Rehearsals, Wales 15/16 May 2012"