Originally Posted by
airsound
But as you will have seen from the Conclusions of the AAIB report Also, from the Prosecution's 53-page opening handout which I referred to in post #589 So neither the AAIB, nor the Prosecution, support your view. Indeed, the Prosecution charge relied on AH's being suitably experienced and qualified to fly the display – inexperience cannot equate to negligence.
airsound
I went through a similar system to get my DA on the Hunter T7. Albeit with a lot of years flying fast jets (though none of it flying low level aerobatics), it took me 3 trips to go solo in the Hunter (an aircraft I had never flown before) and a further 4 to get my low level DA. At the time I was naïve enough to just go along with it as I believed I was safe and circumspect about what I attempted and the manoeuvres we planned for our displays were all very 'safe' with no nose low commits as we weren't experienced enough.
Was that enough to then fly within striking distance of 000's of people, plus those outside the fence who were just going about their daily business? In hindsight, I think not. When you compare what I did to what an RAF pilot will have to go through to get a DA, on a type they're already current on and the gulf is huge, perhaps more than huge. And of course once they have a DA, it's only for the manoeuvres they are cleared to do whereas I was then cleared to fly any manoeuvre I chose at the time.
AH was current and fit in terms of the regs at the time, that doesn't mean it was safe, at least in my opinion. The system failed those victims and their families