Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacon stood 8.5m high and was erected in the centre of The Mall adjacent to the Jubilee Concert stage. The Beacon consisted of a giant Diamond (2.5m high) on top of a 6m high plinth. The plinth was clad to look like stone work and to match the Royal Victoria Monument.
The National Beacon was lit by Her Majesty the Queen and was the last in a series of more than 4000 smaller beacons located across the Commonwealth. The beacons were in celebration of Her Majesty’s 60 years of reign.
Designing the Beacon
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacon itself was designed as a “bright cut” Diamond by Nick Spells (BST Design Director). An additional 4 facets were added to create a diamond with 60 facets (one for each of Her Majesty’s reign). The diamond was fabricated from steel plate and each facet was laser cut, welded and linished. The diamond was then powder coated with a special, high-temperature, paint imported from Italy. The paint was rated at 550°C to ensure it did not tarnish during tests and rehearsals – everything had to be perfect on the night!
Adding the fuel
Inside the Diamond were 4 pilot flames, each individually monitored. Each pilot had its own ionisation detector and burner controller to ensure ignition of the main burners when cued. This arrangement also meant we had a 3:1 redundancy ratio for peach-of-mind!
Twin propane vapour supplies were piped to the pilot flames, again to add an element of redundancy. If we lost one propane supply then we would still have a secondary supply to ensure everything remained running.
There were three main burners to provide the actual visual effect. Each burner was supplied with liquid propane, rather than propane gas, to give the 6m high flame required. Once again there were multiple supplies, valves and bypass circuits to ensure any single-part failure would not stop the Beacon from igniting.
Who big was flame effect?
The main burner assembly was rated at 8 mega Watts (8,000,000 Watts) equivalent to 4000 kettles all being boiled at once! Imagine the heat given off. Another comparison would be of more than 133,000 electric lamps being switched on at the same time!
The propane vapour, liquid and safety systems were all housed inside the beacon plinth itself. The plinth was constructed of aluminium box truss, boarded-out with 2″x4″ fire retardant wooden planks, and filled with 4 tons of sand ballast.
The whole system was installed over a period of 2 days and dismantled and removed within 4 hours! – with help of numerous riggers, telehandlers, forklifts, cherry pickers etc.
