Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Emasculated? Hardly.
Contrary to popular belief, the afternoon flying display is fairly incidental to Farnborough's raison d'être, that's to say the deals done and relationships cemented in the hospitality chalets after a boozy lunch. All those noisy fast jets doing aerobatics and commercial jets performing manoeuvres that they will never do in service are, frankly, a bit of a distraction from the business in hand.
So while the unwashed masses (including yours truly) are going to miss the aerial stunts, the show organisers and the exhibitors aren't going to lose any sleep if the Red Arrows are reduced to doing just a series of flypasts.
The normal 2.30pm start time for the flying display was always meant to allow those in the chalets to finish their lunches before it started.
I presume the organisers won't have to pay the Arrows so much if they don't do a full display. I don't know the present scale of charges for the Arrows but it has to be pretty steep.