Whilst it is unfortunate that a horse rider died, I have to be frank and say that the responsibility is 100% on the rider who decides to take up a dangerous sport, and quite frankly I would be prepared to sacrifice a great many more riders in the interests of keeping alive more of my mates during war.
Sorry if I'm stating the bleeding obvious and since the only item of hi-tech MOD kit I 'fly' is a desk, I may be way off the mark on some of the flying specifics, but I really can't grasp how this case even got to court.
Surely if the rider was in Lincolnshire, she would have been aware of the increased liklihood of aircraft activity in that region. Nevertheless the liklihood of a horse being spooked by an ac, the rider being thrown and then the rider dieing as a result of their injuries must be extremely small. For the MOD to consider adjusting its practices to mitigate against an event, the odds of which with are so small, just seems absurd. Would the best approach be to continue as we were but incourage the horse riding community to become more aware of low flying ac?
Would BA or Virgin or any other civilian operator adjust the way they approach airports if a similar incident were to occur under the flight path to Gatwick, Heathrow or Stansted for example?
Maybe I'm looking at this too simplistically, however, it strikes me as another occasion where the Military is being hammered because the general public can't grasp why what we do is important.