A question for everybody.
Is there a number you have in mind for an acceptable number of deaths caused by Airshows and aviation in general?
The reason I ask is that we really need a target.
If the answer is zero, then the solution is apparent.
If not, then the process cannot work without accepting that a number of accidents will happen.
Once you set a number, you are implicitly saying that you accept that accidents are an unavoidable consequence of aviating.
To hand-wring after each accident and attempt to make it impossible to happen again is moving goal posts that we set ourselves. The end point of this is obviously the end of flying.
If you had said to one of our predecessors in 1960 whether he would be happy with a death rate 10 times less than they then experienced with very minimal changes, then he would be ecstatic and sign up immediately.
Well we are well beyond that point. We have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We are now suffering such low accident rates that they are too low for statistical analysis. One accident skews the graph for a year so far it gives no useful inferences.
We are also a long way past the easy fixes that have negligible effect on aviation and airshows.
Everything we now do is closer to the point where there is no airshow anymore. People want a spectacle. They want noise and speed and excitement.
Yes they want the Shuttleworth etc too, but that is a very different audience.
I think it is not unreasonable to say that as long as it is safer to be at the airshow than when you are driving to it, then it is safe enough.