MG - you are having a laugh aren’t you? It’s a bit like having a 4-star that’s never been a Stn Cdr or AOC, or a Cos Pers that’s a dentist?
Don’t forget this is the same individual that had the ‘vision’ that brought us the disastrous RAF Clothing Collection - info here from a previous thread:
More RAF Clothing.... To quote the papers at the time “it’s a bit like Ralph Lauren”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ion-label.html
Then there was the equally disastrous “RAF Spirit of Adventure” that also had his fingerprints on it - previous thread
Spirit of Adventure Mischievously known as the “Spirit of Misadventure” here is a press clip:
SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE - A WEEKEND OF TWO HALVES!
The inaugural Spirit of Adventure in Abingdon was a weekend of two halves as the best of British took to the skies on Saturday, the first day of the spectacle, and the skies served up the worst of British weather on Sunday.
Thousands enjoyed the unique spectacle as the stars of the show, the Royal Air Force, thrilled the crowd with stunning aerial displays by planes including Typhoon, Tornado, E3D Sentry and Hawk. The Battle For Britain interactive blockbuster proved the revelation of the event as film and live action combined to create a stunning display that left the crowd unable to tell where reality stopped and fantasy began.
The Red Arrows closed the show on Saturday performing their exciting and breathtaking new display for the first time in 2007.
Group Captain Andy Turner “I am really pleased how the event went on Saturday. From talking to members of the crowd thousands of people enjoyed themselves watching the spectacular Red Arrows in their first major show of the year. I was also very impressed with the Battle For Britain film. This was our first excursion into major film-making involving some very complex choreography of live aircraft, ground-displays and awesome pyrotechnics.”
On Sunday the British weather dealt a cruel blow with the conditions proving too inclement for the show to go ahead. Overnight very low cloud and heavy rain came into the area and the Met Office advised that this would only get worse throughout the day. If we chose to go ahead with the event and ignore the weather, the planes would have flown but the cloud would have prevented the audience from seeing the displays. After agonising deliberation the organisers concluded that the only sensible decision was to cancel the event on the Sunday.
All ticket holders for the Sunday will be entitled to a refund of the ticket face value by contacting the point of purchase.
This is what one punter wrote about it:
I went today, and paid to get in. By the time I'd paid my parking fee and driven over the grass several miles, I was wondering if I was in the right place. The complete lack of a crowd was noticeable. I paid the disinterested and obviously bored staff, and was confronted, at 11 o'clock in the morning, by people leaving and one group demanding their money back. Apparently Toady Jervis had published a map via the Herald local newspaper website with with Dr Who, Star Trek and other TV show stands on it, and some fans were disappointed not to see ANY of the stands there. Lie number 1.
I ran into an old air show freind of many years expereince and we compared notes on the crowd, 9 rows of 52 cars (yes, we counted!) makes for 1,872 people at 4 people per car. The RAF estimated 50,000 a day on its website after the Horseguards launch of the SOA, and JEM estimated 25,000 per day. Staff were then overheard telling people at least 8,000 people had been there today. Lie number 2.
The spectacular car action consited of 6 European NASCARs of dubious quality being driven up and down and doing the odd cowboy donut. Ho hum, deadly dull, except for the all-body RAF and Typhoon logo wearing Ford Fiesta, which was a gem of pathetic marketing and embarrasing "yoof" culture.
Jervis is quoted on his website as claiming that this would also be a shopping specacular. This consisted of the RAF clothing collection, the Red Arrows ground crew stand, and the Red Arrows Marketing Company stand. Lots of choice then, and lie number 3.
Conversations by my colleague with staff at the show revealed and interesting fact. The movie that was to save the day and be the centrepiece of the show was delivered late by JEM. This was also one of the reasons that the original show in August 06 was cancelled, it had not been finished. Despite the limited and hard to find pre-event press talking about an hour or 90 minute hollywood-style blockbuster film, the actual film delivered by JEM was under half an hour, and consisted mostly of Andy Turner and Terry Jervis in newsroom-style interviews. Terry Jervis may be many things, but a screen presenter he is not. Andy Turner may now hold a record for ums and ers in a pre-recorded video. Deadly dull, but a good high profile for the two gentlemen involved. In order to pad the film out, DDefPub staff spent Wednesday of last week in the Old War Office Building, splicing pieces of old RAF information films into the so called blockbuster movie, giving it about a 55 minute length. These splices had no relevant soundtrack, so on the day, the commentator had to improvise voiceovers, which sounded terrible in conjunction with the set soundtrack in the rest of the movie. There wan no interactivity at all, despite everyone concerned stressing this was a vital feature of the film. You sat and watched, and were deeply confused, then laughing out loud at the pitiful acting and appaling boys-own storyline. No aliens were involved, despite the JEM site pronouncements, and no interactivity becomes lie number 4.
The flying was pedestrian in nature and so far away as to be un-photographable. The much vaunted dogfight was two F3s, each following a Hawk in lazy circles at about 2,000 feet. The pyrotechnics set off in time to the RAF Regiment mortars and GR4 flypasts at least made my son jump, but thats all. Many of the aircraft in the published programme were simply not there.
I could go on, but the list of things that were promised but were not there, and the list of blatant mis-information about this show and its content would fill a small book.
Andy Turner should be made to show his accounts on this fiasco. Terry Jervis has proved himself an incapable shyster of the worst stripe. I would like to know why the RAF still has him contracted after his failure to produce this show last year, two magazine projects, a clothing range of any quality and most crucialy, a movie of acceptable length and quality to base a £25 a head show on. He should be asked to return the funds paid to him and be removed from his contract for so many clear breaches. I doubt this will happen, largely because of Jervis's colour, no one wants the racist slur cast at them do they?
Then there is his involvement with UK MFTS - you know, that system that will “
deliver top-end, total role conversion”. Here is one of many articles on the subject:
https://www.flightglobal.com/analysi...117639.article Or
http://www.helicopters.airbus.com/we...MFTS_1995.html
Retirement is on short finals for me, so I will watch with interest as this unravels. I just hope it will be 4th time lucky for Astra, but I’m not too confident from what I’ve read about it so far. Sometimes people say “
Past performance is no guarantee of future results” - I hope they are right!
