RED ARROWS Question
I live near Camberley in Surrey and hence close to Farnborough. With the airshow ina couple of weeks we are approaching the period when 'the sound of Freedom' as the USAF refered to its fighters in the fifties is common.
However Iwas very surprised today when the gentle whine of airbusses in and out of LHR was replaced arround noon by 15 mins of military turbojet noise (great )
I couldnt figure out what this was as the cloud was so low that nothing at all could be seen until close to the end of the spell one of the red arrows hurtled past 500 ft agl? (I know its hard to tell but anyway pretty low) and literaly just skiimming the bottom of the cloud.
Now every show year we see the Reds practice beforehand and some of their routines have singles or pairs arcing back over Camberley and thats not new but Iwas amazed at them trying display flying in what seemed awful weather with rain and very low clouds.
Of course I am not suggesting for a second anyone was taking any risks and I know they have a different routine for low cloud base days. Today however I only saw one plane inside twenty odd mins and any pull up type routine must have had them in cloud in secomds so not much to see if any spectators. So I was left admiring the guys flying but wondering how realistic practice is in such awful conditions as today and indeed what the reds 'minimums' actually are.
Interested in any replies-thanks in advance and hoping for sunnier skies in a couple of weeks 'cos we always get a great free show several times in the showweek.
PB