Courtney - Let me say I admire many of your posts and understand that you are a knowledgeable 'witness' in all of this.
Firstly, I should acknowledge that some of my comments were judgemental which is not my style. I am ex FJ and automatically sympathise with the pilot when things go wrong so let's get that out of the way. I have removed the "forgiveness" part of my post too because it was wrongly interpreted as referring to Shoreham when I meant that he had carried on without changing anything after the "STOP" order(s) - I was told there were 2 but stand corrected.
What I find most extraordinary is the way that you list AH's recent "experience" as though it answers those of us questioning his fitness (i.e. recent experience/practice) to display such a high performance jet.
40.25 hours in the last FIVE YEARS - 8 hours a year!
3 hours a month in the last 3 months.
2 hours in the last 28 days.
AND he flew commercial jets for a living AND he displayed a low performance Jet Provost AND flew in a piston display team.
The hours above are just about enough to remain current - let alone carry out low level display aerobatics. As you know, Courtney, RAF display pilots were full time professionals on the ONE type they displayed. They did their job (say, 3 trips a day) and practiced their aeros after work - much to the delight of people like me who would always stop and watch. You would never get a full time Herc pilot driving somewhere to do a Hunter display, and then next weekend displaying a JP! It should never happen and, hopefully will never happen again.
Manslaughter? Not sure really but I think I know what the relatives of the poor innocents on the A27 would think.
All in all, a huge tragedy on many levels and so easily avoidable.