I’ve thought long and hard about what I think regarding this event. My thoughts are thus:
If the jury ruled that AH suffered from CI after listening to hours of evidence then who am I to argue? I will still admit to not fully understanding it based on what has been explained on here.
I sat through two BFM sorties today and whilst exposed to prolonged G I don’t believe my faculties to have been adversely affected in any way.
If we are to state that AH is an ‘experienced FJ operator’ then I think we need to define what we mean by that. The elder statesmen of this forum regularly pour scorn on the youngsters who have far less hours than they accrued during their service careers.
AH had 1500 FJ hours (800 of which were on the JP) and left the RAF 21 years before the accident. There was then a 9-10 year gap before he started flying JPs again.
I wouldn't argue for a second if someone said he was an experienced JP pilot. With 14000 total flying hours we can all agree he is also an experienced pilot. The bit I take issue with is that most of his flying was either so distant or on a completely unrelated type to the Hunter.
I stated earlier I have a fair amount of current Hawk experience but I wouldn’t go and fly low level aerobatics tomorrow without an appropriate work up (or work down depending on how you look at it).
I apologise if this is not the Pprune approved opinion but it is mine.
I can accept that AH was not criminally negligent. I also accept that the CAA bear a lot of blame for allowing the regulations as they were. As an ‘experienced FJ operator’ though I question why he felt suitably qualified and current to fly those manoeuvres.
The upshot, for me personally, is that I would not take my family to an air show with these old Warbirds displaying as things stand. I’m all for flying them as a hobby (I wouldn’t do it but I understand why others want to) and even performing flypasts but until I know something has changed markedly then my family and I will not partake.
Rip me to shreds if you must but you can’t change my opinion.
BV
Edited to add: Capt Scribble, you don’t need to be at altitude to suffer from hypoxia. Hypoxia is a deficiency in the amount of Oxygen reaching the tissues. That can be for many reasons. Altitude is just the one that we, as pilots, are most familiar with.