Originally Posted by Arfur Dent
What we need are some professional air display pilots who do nothing else but fly historic fast jets for a living. £100,000 a year and enough practice to be up to the job 100% of the time.
Dream on Dent. Who's going to pay for the historical jets, the fuel, the maintenance, the salaries for professional pilots and engineers, and ...
The net result would be that classic jets would just fade away, only to be seen in museums or at scrap merchants.
The real issues are about competency and knowing your own limits and those of your aircraft. Why shouldn't a 60 year-old take to the sky and fly a safe but less spectacular display than he did in his heyday? In any event the pilot, whoever he or she is, must satisfy the conditions of the display authorisation. No doubt the show pilots doing aerobatic manaoeuvres will have preformed their exact routine in front of the air show safety officer, before the show, to receive a sign-off (validation).