Nigelh - I did warn you about threatening Silsoe like that - he is loathe to let go until he gets to the bottom of anything and your jibe about showing us all where these accidents are.....well you didnt just shoot yourself in the foot, you damn well blew your leg off.
But of course what that exercise of yours taught me (yet again) is that there are people out there just like you, who never ever think it will happen to them, even when they taunt others about accident statistics - they don't believe they exist, they don't beileve in anything other than their capabilities.
Unfortunately nigelh...and you'll have to sit down for this one:
YOU ARE HUMAN, just like the rest of us. You will react just like the rest of us, when the donk stops in the HVC you will come a cropper just like the rest of us. You aren't in the mil - consider yourself lucky, because the mil have an extra word in their vocabulary and it's called ATTRITION. And if you are ordered to carry out low level in the HVC manouevres - you do it come what may.
Civvies have the luxury of ignoring that and staying safer and possibly living longer.
PS: No amount of money makes a pilot safer or braver - remember that.
Sorry 'mate' you're just NORMAL
And if you continue with that frame of mind..........in time, you will stoof.