Navy plane which sunk the Nazis to perform flypast at Queen's Jubilee pageant In a spectacular finale to the grandest event ever staged on the River Thames, Swordfish bi-plane, the only one of its kind still flying, is planned to lead a "Diamond Nine" flypast of Royal Navy helicopters to close the pageant, in a display of airborne military prowess. During the pageant on Sunday afternoon, the highlight of this weekend's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the Queen and several members of the Royal Family will take part in a flotilla of 1,000 boats sailing from Battersea Bridge in south-west London, to Tower Bridge. At just after 5.20pm, as the last of the vessels approach the end of the seven-mile route, the diamond-shaped formation will fly above the Thames, past the Royal Family aboard HMS President, a former Royal Navy corvette permanently moored near Blackfriars Bridge, where they will have earlier disembarked the Royal Barge to watch the flotilla sail by. Originally built in 1934, with a body made of laminated cloth stretched over a wooden frame, the Swordfish torpedo bomber is considered a "legendary" aircraft in the Royal Navy and is the oldest Naval aircraft still flying. It played a pivotal role in several battles during the Second World War, including the attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1940 and the operation to destroy the German battleship Bismarck in 1941, where a Swordfish torpedo hit the ship's rudder as she was turning, disabling the vessel. In 1942, a flight of Swordfish attempted to attack a fleet of German warships making a surprise breakout through the Channel. Known as the "Channel Dash," the action, which saw all six Swordfish that delivered the attack destroyed, resulted in the senior officer, Lt Cdr [Eugene] Esmonde, being awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. A spokesman for the MoD, said: "The Swordfish was deemed a fitting finale for the pageant, being the Navy's most iconic aircraft because of its crucial role in important military campaigns." The plane will lead nine helicopters from the Fleet Air Arm flying in a diamond formation, including three Merlin helicopters, four Lynx and two Sea King search and rescue helicopters, which the Duke of Cambridge flies in his role as a search and rescue helicopter pilot at RAF Valley in Anglesey.