Originally Posted by
Thoughtful_Flyer
Also, as I have said earlier, I fail to see how in most circumstances pilots can have sufficient relevant currency on these types of aircraft to safely fly aerobatic routines in public. I have also mentioned the crash of the Gnat at a show less than a year before Shoreham. If I remember correctly the pilot had just enough total flying hours in the preceding year to maintain a PPL! Yet he was legally qualified to display a historic swept wing fast jet at a public show! Something very wrong with that situation.
I completely agree. The Gnat pilot not only had inadequate currency but woefully inadequate total experience, having been medically discharged from the RAF while still a student at Valley. He, along with another Gnat Display Team (!) member whose only military flying was on a University Air Squadron (!!), was presented on the operator's publicity material as an experienced former RAF pilot. I regret to say that this clown show was indulged by a genuinely experienced veteran QFI, enjoying a bit of Gnat flying underwritten by what effectively were "pay to fly" display pilots with more money from their business careers than sense. The dead pilot left a wife and young children. I wonder what the QFI's reflections are.