orbital

[makyo]

Comments

[d_floorlandmine]

I wasn't there on the Monday, but ciphergoth can be quite enthusiastic. [grin]

[drdoug]

It turns out that the traffic lights and bollards on the Mall are bolted, rather than concreted, in. This is so that with about 25 minutes' notice, they can all be removed, and the Mall turned into a functioning airstrip in order to evacuate Buckingham Palace.It's a lovely idea but I'm very, very skeptical. It's a longish walk down there, but it's nothing compared to a real runway. And even if you get rid of the lights and bollards, there's still those rows of trees down the sides. I think you'd need an ace pilot flying something with special short-runway capability. An RAF Harrier could do it, I suppose, but a) you could probably plop one down on the smart side of the railings anyway and b) you're not going to spirit very many Royals to safety in one of those things unless you strap them to unused weapons mountings or something. (And if that strikes you as an amusingly apposite idea, you should be honest and admit that you aren't that committed to taking extreme measures to protect the Royal Family in the first place

[psygnet]

It looks an interesting talk - wish I'd been there!