Brakes! Let’s look at where this discussion started.
Dr Pleming et al would very much like to host a private little party to launch ‘their’ aircraft.
His wacky attempt to exclude the great unwashed from the event went thus –
VTS club members and friends (over 22,000 individual records) who would wish to attend would render the first test flight impossible, because it would legally become a display.
Putting aside the notion that the benefactor of millions of £ of public money obviously views his contributors as exceedingly dim, just how does Dr Pleming intend to keep this event secret? It’s not possible.
The unwashed will most definitely turn up, invited or not, but don't expect canapes and a brolly. In reality, I don’t think anything has changed at all. Apart, perhaps, from the benefactors feeling a little peeved.