Extended flypast for King's official Birthday

An extended military flypast will take place following the King’s first birthday parade after the display on coronation day had to be scaled down due to bad weather.

Around 70 aircraft from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force will take part in a flypast for Trooping the Colour on Saturday, marking the first birthday flypast for Charles.

The King, Queen and other members of the royal family are expected to watch as the aircraft fly over The Mall and Buckingham Palace in a six-minute display.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the aircraft will take off from 15 locations up and down the UK before meeting in the south-east of England and flying across London.

The event will feature a mix of aircraft, ranging from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight dating back to the 1940s and the C-130 Hercules on its final ceremonial flight to multiple Typhoon fighter jets and the Envoy IV CC1, which is making its flypast debut.

The event will end in a show of red, white and blue from the pilots of the Red Arrows.

More than 60 aircraft from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force had been due to take part in the coronation flypast in May but “unsuitable weather conditions” saw that plan abandoned.

Instead, helicopters from the three services and the Red Arrows took part in the display, which lasted for around two and a half minutes.

Commanding officer of the Red Arrows Wing Commander Adam Collins took part in last month's coronation flypast:

"Really other than the odd glance over the side to see the Shard and other things the only way you know you're over the Palace is when the call comes on for the coloured smoke and back off again so it's relatively a surreal experience and it's not until afterwards looking at the footage you realise what is you've just been and done.

"That's when the gravity of the situation hits starting to look at the pictures from social media and realising that potentially two billion people watched that flypast (on Coronation day) so although you feel a bit of pressure before a bit of apprehension actually when you're going over the top you're just concentrating on doing a good job and making the formation as tidy as you can."

This year the Red Arrows are displaying with 8 aircraft but for official flypasts they are at full strength with 9 jets.

Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, said:

“We are very proud to be able to showcase our capabilities to our Commander-in-Chief, on this historic occasion for his majesty the King.

“We have planned a fitting and appropriate tribute for our monarch, that should be a true spectacle for the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.”

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