Just before ten o'clock yesterday morning I positioned myself on the river wall at North Woolwich and waited. I'd been tipped off by the Ian Visits website that a flypast was due, specifically that it'd be overflying Valentines Park (09:59) Woolwich Barracks (10:00) and Petts Wood (10:01). They're pretty precise, these Civil Aviation Authority Notices to Airmen. So precise that I was able to draw a line between the points, spot it crossed the Thames by the Woolwich Ferry and try to stand underneath. I got very close.
It's a bit strange hanging around by a queue for a car ferry in the middle of the morning, especially when nobody else nearby is expecting what's about to happen. Dogwalkers trotted over the river defences, residents of the local block of flats slinked home and two boats docked very slowly at their respective piers. There was still every possibility that rain, wind or low cloud might see the flypast cancelled. At 9:59am nothing had happened, 30 seconds later still bugger all, but at 09:59:35 a smoking formation suddenly appeared from behind the flats and the flypast was on.
I'm not sure if anyone else looked up, I wasn't looking at them, I was staring at the sky. Those on the ferry were probably preoccupied with boarding, those waiting in their cars were obscured by a whopping concrete wall and those out shopping in Woolwich would have had too many buildings in the way. A good thing about being this close to the action was that the pilots had just fired up their coloured smoke so the streams changed from white to red/blue within my field of view. Another good thing about being this close to the action was that all nine trails were distinct and separate in an almost-perfect V.
The aerial spectacle zoomed across the river all too quickly, targeting whatever outdoor event at Woolwich Barracks had merited the costly display. The Armed Forces aren't above spending money to entertain themselves. I see I only managed to take eight photos over the course of what turned out to be nineteen seconds, swivelling round midway to focus on Woolwich rather than the sky. And as the smoke trails slowly dissipated and the estuary went back to normal, the usual scream of planes taking off from City Airport eventually returned. These moments of awe and wonder are rare in any one given location, and to take full advantage it pays to know they're coming.
