The capital breathed a collective sigh of relief yesterday, as a large contingent of the Royal Air Force somehow managed to fly over central London without a single collision or mid-air explosion.
The flypast featured self-combusting Nimrods, over-revving Chinooks, wing-shedding Hercules, Typhoons which wobble alarmingly if fitted with the gun they were designed for, and a rusting Apache which had been sitting in a field for four years. As panic-stricken Londoners ran for cover, the ceremony was rounded off by the Red Arrows, who somehow managed not to collide with each other for once.
"I wasn't too worried by the Battle of Britain Flight," said one citizen, cowering in the safety of a tube station. "After all, they've had seventy years to sort out any problems with the Spitfire, the Hurricane and the Lancaster. It's everything built since the war that scares the living crap out of me."
"Tell you what, I'm bladdy proud of the Queen, though," said an elderly, shaking Cockney. "After all, she kin remember them doodlebugs back in 1944, when you ran like fuck if you 'eard a jet engine overhead. Just like today, innit? And yet, Gawd bless 'er, she was stood there like she dint 'ave a care in the world. She's an inspiration, that woman."
"Cawse, she could just be deaf as a stone," she reflected.
The finest traditions of needless self-sacrifice for which the air arm is famous were, however, gloriously upheld barely 24 hours later when an RAF Volunteer Reserve pilot - with almost the entire bloody sky to himself - decided to fly his Tutor trainer into the one tiny bit of airspace already occupied by a glider, killing himself and his child passenger in a virtual carbon copy of a similarly-avoidable crash in February between two RAF trainers.
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