World Leaders

May 2023 saw the coronation of King Charles III in London. I visited the capital aiming to photograph some of the VIP aircraft the various world leaders and royalty used to fly into the UK. Here is just a selection of the many visitors…

Whatever you or I may think of the fact that these VIPs use private jets, and in some cases very large jets, I have always had an interest in aviation and in the aviation world, these are very rare planes to see and photograph. I visited a couple of locations including Farnborough and Luton which are busy private jet airports in their own right but most of the action was at Stansted airport in Essex.

I have actually been trying for some time to photograph “Air Force 1”, the Boeing 747 the president of the United States uses but have always been otherwise engaged. When it does visit the UK it is often in darkness too which doesn’t help! As soon as the date was confirmed for the coronation I booked it into my diary knowing that president Biden would be there….

It was not until a couple of weeks before the coronation that it was announced that Joe Biden would not be travelling, sending his wife over in his place - angry face!! This meant another chance of “Air Force 1” had disappeared - I still managed to see the smaller Boeing 757 that Jill Biden was on but I was disappointed. Alas, there was still many other rare and interesting movements to see!

Day 1, arriving at Stansted airport and selecting our location on the far side of the runway, The drizzle started and gradually got worse and worse. By the end of the day everything was soaked! The poor weather whilst not pleasant to stand in does create some atmospheric images - I particularly liked the shots with Vapour coming off the wings as the aircraft lifted into the murky skies.

Day 2 the weather started out a little grey but cleared into a warm sunny day, a complete contrast to the previous day and in fact allowed the fold out chairs to dry, still wet from the day before! This was the day after the coronation so the main departure day. There is no schedule for such aircraft movements, they go when they want and often put in a flight plan last minute so it was just a waiting game as to when things would leave.

The last aircraft we watched depart was in fact Jill Biden’s plane back to Washington DC, then we headed home ourselves. I do not do much aviation photography these days as I spend much of my free time chasing wildlife photography with my family. I do always enjoy the occasion I point my camera at some heavy metal though! I enjoyed the trip very much despite the weather and was pleased to see such rare and illusive aircraft that had descended on the UK for such a large occasion.

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