Six jets of the Self-Defense Forces aerobatic team Blue Impulse flew over central Tokyo last week on May 29 to show respect and gratitude to medical workers responding to COVID-19. On the Palaceside Building rooftop, too, a crowd gathered to watch. As the jets raced across a clear blue sky trailing white smoke, a great cheer went up =photo above.
Seen in close-up, they really are cool =photo below.
The flight was announced the day before, and people determined not to miss it — including tenant employees — gathered on the rooftop in several times the usual lunchtime numbers. The six-jet formation left Iruma Air Base in Saitama Prefecture around 12:30 p.m., headed southeast from over Itabashi around 12:40, passed Ueno Park, turned northeast around Kameido, U-turned over Katsushika, then flew via Asakusa, Tokyo Station and Gotanda, turned north near Maruko Bridge in Ota Ward, passed west of Shibuya and over Shinjuku, and returned to Iruma.
Waiting on the Palaceside Building rooftop, they came from the northwest and passed beyond the NTT Building, the National Center of Sciences and Josui Kaikan on the building's north side =first of the photos at the end. After slipping east of the Palaceside Building they changed heading, circled the downtown area, and a few minutes later came again from the east, flying west parallel to the building beyond the greenery of the Imperial Palace =second photo at the end, then disappeared toward the National Diet and beyond =third photo at the end.
Blue Impulse last flew over central Tokyo six years ago, at the farewell event for the old National Stadium (May 31, 2014). Many will remember their flight at the Olympic flame arrival ceremony on March 20 this year at Matsushima Air Base in Miyagi Prefecture, the team's home. Strong wind then blew the five-color Olympic-ring smoke away — a shame.
Some questioned this flight as "playing to the crowd," and in a time of "self-restraint" it is hard to know how far to go. Still, air-festival events at SDF bases nationwide have been held back because of COVID-19, so for aviation fans it was certainly a rare chance to see Blue Impulse.
