Originally Posted by
megan
Even the best practised are not immune from errors, though in this case he had a safe place in which to crash. The Hunter test pilot, Bill Bedford, demonstrating the aircraft to the Swiss made the error of forgetting he was displaying at a high altitude airport and on the down line of a loop realised he may not make it, but did.
As much of this post involves discussion of loops, to keep the record straight I believe that Bill's event that you describe was actually during the recovery from an intentional spin, not a loop.
My dad started flying in 52 and was the only one of his course of 19 still alive by the end of the 60s. Most died in air crashes.
In the time of the Hunter the UK military lost on average 1 aircraft each and every day! Youngsters will scoff at that stat but in 56 we had lost 40 before the end of January.
I feel that there is little correlation between these statistics and the Shoreham accident. You have to look at why the accident rate was as it was in the '50s and '60s. There is nothing to indicate that at Shoreham there was any causal factor related to the aircraft type or its era. There are certainly factors related to it being a swept wing jet but those apply equally to types that are in production today. The Hunter has generally very good, benign flying qualities. Its main (only?) deficiency is that it is easy to exceed the g limit during manoeuvres involving rapid g onset rates but that will not cause air display accidents. The main consideration with aeroplanes of this era is that for flying in IMC the instruments, unless updated, require 'old skills' and are unreliable. However, as the aircraft that are displayed are cleared for VMC only that is not a safety factor in this context.
One more point of accuracy with respect to 'In the time of the Hunter ..', the Hunter remained in RAF service until 1994 and MAA registered ones are still flying today!