Folks,
As a volunteer on the RIAT photo Team (I was wearing a Hi- Vis vest and spent a lot of time on the aprons and met a few 'PRUNERS' you might have seen me) I've got to set the record straight on a few points raised here.
Firstly, the little G222 incident. I didn't actually see the mishap, but being down on Apron Gold at the time I was on scene shortly after the crash crew had the situation under control. Speaking to the Incident Commander etc. the nosewheel tyre continued burning in the well and this contributed to the majority of the interior damage. Externally it wasn't that bad with just the underside panels dented and scraped etc., but methinks it won't be flying for a while!
Contrary to one of the earlier posts, the runway escaped remarkably well with just a slight scrape and a bit of localised damage where the molten rubber etc. dripped onto the surface. Some sterling work by a RIAT clean up team soon had this sorted and the full runway was soon in use once more.
At this point allow me to state publically how impressive it was to watch both the Fire Services and the 'Crash & Smash' boys from St. Athan in action - the main contributing factor to the 4 hr delay in getting the aircraft moved was actually waiting for a suitable crane to be brought in from off site. Some food for thought for the future maybe?
Overall though a big well done to all concerned - it was a privellage to work with you.
Turning now to the other points raised namely the traffic etc. photographing this was actually one of our taskings so I did have more interest than perhaps is healthy in this. It was always known that security was going to be a big problem and anything which interrupts the flow of people through the gates will unfortunately inevitably cause delays. There was a problem with one of the gate locks on the Saturday morning which was only solved by the intervention of an angle grinder so if you were stucking in that long pedestrian crew on the Kempsford Road (past RIAT staff reception), that was why. Unfortunately though this introduced a back log and in turn swamped the security staff who were trying to do their job.
My understanding is that the increased security measures were a requirement of the USAF and hence there is not a lot that can be done. Unfortunately getting that number of people in and out of anywhere at the same time can never go without delay. Also, despite what was said earlier - random bag searches and other measures which I wont go into on this forum were in use so I assure you that the delays weren't for nothing.
All I can say is that every volunteer I met worked very hard to make the day as safe and enoyable as they could for the public & participants and therefore idiots like the one described in one of the previous postings taking it out on the poor marshaller deserve to be locked up!
Finally, thanks to all who took part or contributed to the show for a very tiring but hugely enjoyable week.
"BLW"