Student Harvey Dawson tells us about his experience in attending the RAF 100 event in London on Tuesday 10th July 2018:

"I was fortunate to be chosen to attend the RAF 100 event in London. The 100th birthday of the RAF.

What an experience.

It was an early start, 05:45 to be precise, and we all turned out in our parade uniform with shirts, ties and very shiny shoes for a day to remember.

The coach headed towards London ahead of the crowds. Our first job was to collect for the RAF appeal from all of the people arriving at The Mall. We were handed buckets and badges and sent off to our allocated areas. People were very friendly giving us all they could to raise money for the appeal.

After about two hours we all come together and lined up on The Mall ready for the fly over. The Royal family greeted the flyover from their balcony at Buckingham Palace.

There were around 100 planes on their way coming from Essex to fly over our heads and down The Mall. The helicopters flew over first them all the other planes which included spitfires, a Lancaster, Eurofighters, hawks, tornadoes and many more. 22 typhoon jets were in the formation of 100 in celebration. There were 3 F-35 Stealth fighter jets which were amazing. Last of all the red arrows flew over smoking in the colours of red white and blue.

We then made our way to The Horse Guard's parade ground where there were many planes grounded that we could climb over, sit in and take pictures. While we were there they held a ceremony and we were told about some of the planes and how they had been used by the RAF, and what their capabilities were.

Then it was time to get back to the coach and make out way back home after a long day that I will always remember, we arrived in Chelmsford at 20:30."

Harvey Dawson