Well. it was decided a long time ago to call them the Red Arrows and that was ok when we were flying biplanes, but as every aeronautical engineer knows, red paint just doesn't hold up in the high speed environment. Think about it, do you ever see any other fast jets painted red?
So they had a problem that they could solve one of two ways, they could rebrand themselves as the Blue Arrows, but it hardly has the same panache does it? Anyway back in the sixties one of our back room boys was playing around with his equipment and he realised that if he could invent an apparatus that could project the image of the jet travelling towards the viewer at extreme speed, the aircraft would appear to be red due to the doppler shift.
So, not many people know this, but the Arrows actually perform their display above 20,000 ft where they use the Coltingham Projector to beam an image down to the local village fete. Everyone's happy, the bug smashers are safe, the fuel bill is small enough for a round of G&Ts for the entire squadron after the show and the NIMBYs are happy because the display is almost silent.
Now I know you're going to scoff at this, but go to their website and pull up their schedule. Did you notice how during the summer they actually appear at several villege fetes at the same time? That's because they now include a Nimrod on the team to receive and rebroadcast the Coltingham Projection. Very clever indeed. In fact if fuel bills go much higher, you might see the entire team consisting solely of the Nimrod and the mess VCR. I hope they remember to change the tape first though.
