Shoreham
I think I’ve made my feelings pretty clear in the past but I have to ask, what end state do we all want from this?
If CI is actually a thing we need to be scared of then surely that is the end of all display flying. Who in their right mind would pay to go and watch people throwing high performance machinery around in close proximity to crowds if that individual might, at any time, lose the ability to think and act rationally?
Even military pilots who are current and competent on type could apparently be prone to CI at any time let alone civilians with low experience and currency levels.
If, as I suspect, AH became confused or overloaded (maxed out as previously explained) then surely the CAA must mandate that all civilian pilots of FJs must undergo far more rigorous assessments and possess far more experience and recency on type than AH possessed on that fateful day.
I last flew the Jaguar in 2007. I had 600 hours on type. That is not dissimilar (Although actually far better) to AHs level of FJ recency when he crashed (bearing in mind JP was his aircraft of expertise not the Hunter). If you gave me a handful of hours to refresh on a Jag and asked me to do LL aeros I’d tell you to take a running jump. If you asked me to fly something similar to the Jaguar but not the same (ie a Phantom) I’d again tell you to get lost.
Even if you told me to do a LL display in a Hawk (2750 hours and increasing by the day) I’d still say no.
LL aeros are not my day job (even though flying FJs is) so I wouldn’t dream of performing them for a crowd.
The bottom line is that a lawyer managed to successfully argue for the presence of CI on that day. In saving his own bacon (understandably so and quite possibly completely legitimately) surely AH may have brought forth the end of all civilian, and maybe all military, LL displays?
As I said many posts ago. There is no way I will take my family to any air show with old jets flying unless I can be damn sure the person flying them is competent and qualified enough to be flying it. Right now, I honestly am not sufficiently assured that is the case.
I realise there are people who wish to stick up for AH (and good on you for doing so) but this FJ pilot is just not convinced. I fully understand that doesn’t matter one jot. The only person who will need convincing is the Coroner when the time comes.
BV