Be Excellent To Each Other

Anyone?

HMS Illustrious. As I mentioned in the museums thread, it's here for the Fleet Air Arm centenary celebrations.

I was going to put 'about 5 knots' but I've no how fast that is anyway.

Oh yeah look, there are people standing on it. I can't see them clearly from the window.

And it's clearly tied up.

There is going to be a fly by at 13:00, apparently.

One of the two boats has parked up* there once a year for the past 3 years at least. Its great walking through greenwich (particularly down point hill) with someone who doesn't know and as you round the corner - 'ARRRRGGGHHH FUCKING BIG BOAT!'

*The wifes dad and grandad are both ex navy. I love using such ignorant terms as 'Boat' and 'Parked' purely to annoy them.

There was one an hour ago. Bloody impressive line of choppers.

I'll try and get pictures of the flyby.

Yeah, like that's gonna be able to take-off. Pshaw.

Oh fuck. If you zoom in you can see an angry man wearing a "Pimp My (Apple - Ed)" T-Shirt standing on deck.

I'd start running.....

Nothing yet...

Keep watching the skies!

Minor details. For all I know it could be being dragged along by a fleet of small yellow things.

ducklings?

Floating.

There should be an HMS Ducky if there isn't one.

Also, POTW.

Photo of copter taking off from said large boat, taken from my brother-in-law's living room window:

http://twitpic.com/4ph4q

They came over Neasden - about 16 large helicopters in two curved lines, followed by a smaller helicopter? I wondered what was going on.

Yeah, that was them. Needed more 'Ride of the Valkyries' though.

I have been told it was more than 16 whirlybirds, so let's just say 'lots' of helichoppers. They flew right over the roof. I was worried we were going to war and I had missed the memo.

I'm confused. Are our reports of these naval manoeuvres likely to be helping the terrorists or not?

Tell him to look to his left and I'll wave to him.

Reminds me of 'Nam.

Enjoy the sight of Harriers on a UK carrier while it lasts. Stupid fuckers.

Are the Harriers going somewhere?

They've already been culled and combined into the "Joint Harrier Force", and the Navy is desperate to scrap them. So much so they may well be binned before the replacement (and fucking stupid) F-35Bs turn up.

Three choppers are landing on it right now.

That is a shame..

I walked down the Thames the other day and waved to you Grim... though I didn't quite know where you were. We walked from Waterloo to the Tate Modern and then on to St Pauls. No-one waved back, so I assume you live elsewhere along your moat.

It is. Harriers are one of the best things ever.

Indeed. Rather than buying a stupid non-VIFFing, not-actually-stealth-because-it-would-have-to-carry-its-air-to-air-weapons-externally F-35, and buying carriers for them that they won't be able to make catapult take offs from so won't be able to go out with a full load, they could have developed a new version of the utterly awesomes Harrier. For much less cashmonies.

Stupid, stupid MoD.

We should have invested in a new one.

I agree with Mr Chris, I am not keen on american Jets at all.

I was lucky enough to see a couple at close quarters during the Farnborough Airshow in 2000 doing a hovering display. The weather was terrible but this enabled me to get right up to the barrier closest to where they were hovering approx 200-300 yards away.

Then the heavens opened with a huge downpour and I was a good half mile away from the studio. I sprinted back, but by the time I got there I was totally soaked. In retrospect I should have just dived into Hall 1 which would have taken me undercover for most of the way, but meh.

A Harrier stopped and hovered a few tens of feet above the field by Mrs C's parent's place, then flew off again in pursuit of another one. I think they were playing kiss chase. Utterly awesome planes.

I love my job because I get to go a lot of sites which have lots of this hardware.

And Euro-fighters are loud....

At Fairford a couple of years ago Mrs C and I were by the start of the runway while a B1B was taking off. My ribcage actually rattled it was that loud.

Yeah, I live further east, near Greenwich.

You know Al-poc makes them, right?

You know Al-poc makes them, right?[/quote]
Al-poc?

Yeah, from Little Savages. Sorry, that was a bit of a Shin moment.

Oh, Al-Pocolypse. Is he a Boeing employee then? Or whoever it was who bought out Rockwell.

Dunno mate. All I know is he has fun stories about how little respect there is for the pilots in the design

Seen the Eurofighter loads of times. It was up for all 7 days of both Farnborough Airshows I worked at + also validation as well. It is loud and isn't helpful when doing interviews. I was interviewing the Beagle 2 bloke one afternoon when it was up and we just had to plough on leaving gaps and shouting when needed.

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/grim/tags/hmsillustrious/

Well, I loved the massive firework display they had about half an hour ago.

Me too.