The Red Arrows were expected here at 11.29 over The Palace of Holyroodhouse and then over Edinburgh Castle a minute later.
Many photographers were on the Esplanade and on Princes Street waiting for a shot of the display team on its UK-wide flypast.
This is the first such flight since the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games. The tribute was over Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and London, including The Royal Hospital Chelsea, home to three Burma Star recipients.
Sadly, low cloud at 800 feet put those plans on the back burner, as cloud has to be just above 1000 feet to allow the planes to travel over Edinburgh Castle safely and visibly. But the Red Arrows continued to Prestwick where they landed, regrouped and then took off again.
I had chosen to go to Prestwick Airport earlier today which turned out to be a good move when I heard that the flypast in Edinburgh city centre was cancelled.
Red 11 landed around 10:45/11:00 (Red 11 flies to the airport where they refuel. One plane carries a tech crew like a back up plane)Â
Out of nowhere it flew right across the airfield, smoke on and engine blaring.  As we could track them, it caught everyone by surprise so we all scrambled to get our cameras ready. The plane executed a ‘buzz’ over the tower before turning back along the runway and touching down. The 9 Reds came shooting above the runway, at 11:45, and to everyone’s surprise turned their smoke on.
Prestwick (PIK) had said, just hours before, that there would be no flypast of any sort, but a few people were a little suspicious. Obviously, PIK didn’t want a repeat of the Antonov 225 when thousands of spectators and families turned up to watch the beast land.
This time the police were prepared and there was a heavy police presence. Police cars, vans and even a formation of 6 police motorcycles were constantly on patrol around the perimeter.Â
The reds turned their smoke on and flew all the way over Prestwick before coming round in Diamond formation.They gained height and performed a vertical break manoeuvre. (This is when they do a loop and dart off into all different directions).
Before coming in for approach and touching down, there was only around a 6-8 second gap between touchdowns (10 in total, 9 display and 1 for photography) The timeframe is standard between touchdowns nothing was out of the ordinary. They sat on the ground for around 1 1/2 hours. For take-off they all lined up on the runway in threes and took off in formation. Definitely a cool thing to see.
As we were parked at the other end on the airport we had to walk there, as we were walking we suddenly spotted an RAF A400M aircraft flying low level, lining up for an approach. This came in for 3 approaches in total.
Red 11 then taxied past and took off to go back to RAF SCAMPTON down south.
Definitely an awesome day!!Â
Here is a selection of my photos and you can follow my other aviation photos on Instagram here /the_edinburgh_avgeek/
