This yea’s Trooping the Colour is being held on Saturday (June 14) and will take place in celebration of King Charles’ birthday- despite the monarch being born on November 14. Trooping the Colour is a tradition dating back over 260 years, to mark the official birthday of the British Sovereign.
The event will see the nation come together and enjoy a huge military ceremony featuring over 1,400 parading soldiers, 300 musicians and more than 200 horses. The parade will then finish up with an incredible RAF flypast over Buckingham Palace, with the Royal Family watching from the balcony. The flypast is one of the most look forward to parts of the entire ceremony, and takes a lot of preparation, with strict rules the RAF pilots must follow to ensure everything runs smoothly on the day.
The Civil Aviation Authority’s restriction of flying regulations states the flypast for the King’s Birthday will impose restrictions in the vicinity of the North Sea, East Anglia, Essex, and London to fly over the Palace.
As a result of the large number of aircraft involved, the Secretary of State for Transport says it is necessary to introduce the Restriction of Flying Regulations under Article 239 of the Air Navigation order 2016.
One of the major rules pilots must follow is maintaining specific altitudes at different times and over different areas.
Between 10am and 1pm, aircraft flying across area A, made up of the North Sea, Suffolk and Norfolk, cannot fly below 10,000 feet above mean sea level (AMSL). Area B is covered by the corridor between Saxmundham and East Bergholt. Between 11.30am and 12.25pm, no aircraft can fly below 5,000 feet AMSL within that area.
Just five minutes after, aircraft will also be flying over area C, the corridor between East Bergholt and Colchester, and area D, the corridor between Colchester and Witham, from 11.35am to 12.25pm.
For area C, no aircraft can fly below 4,000 feet AMSL and for area D it is below 3,000 feet AMSL.
The final areas – E, F, G, H, I – will cover corridors from Witham to an area north west of London Heathrow.
All aircraft involved with flying in the respected areas cannot go below 2,500 feet AMSL. Area E and F are subject to the ruling between 11.40am and 12.25pm, while the remaining will follow it between 12pm and 12,40pm.