Nothing wrong with dreaming. Wonder why all those young current pilots practice at all. Just do a few minutes rehearsal, get an authorisation and display live to the general public with virtually no recurrent training from March to October and no flying at all in the Winter. Far too expensive to do it properly.

A and C

I could not agree more with your post 507.

Short of a Police presence nearby to enforce the no-go area (an aviation enthusiast copper with a loud hailer?) I don't know how to stop the practice of people watching from inappropriate areas outside the airfield.

JF

high density altitude - in cockpit crash video
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVM3RRd1vf0


Well explained..

No-go areas!
 

John, are you seriously minded to think that public areas that just happen to be in the vicinity of an air display should be emptied of those who have a lawful right to be there?

And what about those members of the public who are there for any number of other reasons, perhaps a family picnic, unassociated with any air display that just may be happening in the vicinity? Should they be moved along too, or for that matter, why not close all nearby roads and empty houses, schools and hospitals? Perhaps also farmers in the vicinity should be prevented from tending their land on Airshow day?

It ain't gonna happen and as a former display pilot myself I don't think it should happen. We're not talking about the Olympics or the London marathon here, where national interests might trump the interests of a few, we're talking about a local fete in comparison.

There are better ways of mitigating here, and I am sure that the CAA will eventually tighten up some of the slack that I know, from my display days, existed in the regulation. They might also want to reconsider the relationship that exists between those charged to oversee air display flying with those who actually operate the participating aircraft. In my day there was a lot of seat trading done between overseers and operators, and a lot of blind eyes were occassioned to be turned for favours dished out.

Pretty sure the Hurryups keep you off the moorland on the end of the runway at Farnborough, but that might be MOD land, not sure. Haven't got an OS map to hand to check.

I am astonished about comments regarding people watching air shows from outside the field. This to a degree at least a free country and if people were not allowed to watch from public land then aircraft should not be allowed to fly over said land in their displays and that would be ridiculous.
Every Farnborough show me and hundreds of other locals watch from roundabouts and roads north of the field-we put up with the noise crowds and traffic so why should we not watch a bit of the show for nothing .

How would someone define such a rule anyway, Is it ok for me to park my car legally for ten minutes to watch on e display but not legal for a guy with deck chair , sarnies and scanner to spend 3 hours there.

This is a very sad case and sadly I think there is little bit of complacency about the rules and us being the best in the world etc . The rules protecting people at the show are excellent but I do wonder that a manouver like a loop with low pull out close to main road should not have been risk assessed more vigorously-these kind of accidents are not that rare within the small statistical crash population. Similarly at FNB displaying aircraft cannot fly over the crowd but they can and do fly over the town but in fairness most manouvering is very much done over the runway away from and at right angles to the crowd line .

I love aircraft an airshows and this was a tragedy but to 'blame' people who had just come along on a bike to lean against a fence to watch for free for half and hour for being caught up in this is too much in my view
PB

Indeed. The two chaps on a club bike ride. Or the wedding chauffeur.

There's a impression that some here are presenting a "sh1t happens" argument. I thought that aviation was proud of its ethos whereby we analyse accidents/incidents and do things to reduce the chances of repeat occurrences?

If we walk away from this accident having changed nothing then we have failed as an industry.

Deefer dog
 

If Motorsport can enforce prohibited areas around public roads I can't see why such safety areas can't be enforced around air shows.

The right of the individual to do what they like and regulations for public safety will always clash in a free society but a reasonable balance has to be struck.

Insurance and all that
 

Earlier in this thread, there was talk of possible hikes in insurance putting an end to future air displays.....Looks like someone from the insurance company has been reading these posts. :-(

Battle of Britain commemoration flypast over London with 20 Spitfires has been cancelled as insurance costs have soared after the Shoreham air disaster

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3224051/Battle-Britain-commemoration-flypast-London-20-Spitfires-cancelled-insurance-costs-soared-Shoreham-air-disaster.html#ixzz3ky4KA8Cw
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Appertaining to the comments regarding the relationship between entry height into a loop and the top height achieved, a brief reminder of basic physics. For a given power setting, the speed and height at the top of a loop are a function of the speed and height at the entry to that loop plus the g used in the pull up. Therefore, the comments regarding a pull up from 200 ft are only considering part of the equation. Think ENERGY.

I fear we may have just seen something very sad.

The end of British Airshows.....

It'll be interesting to see what happens at Farnborough, with the commercial interests.

Tourist, agreed (rather sadly)

A and C, regarding your comment about motorsport events closing roads for safety and the possibility of doing the same for airshows, I would imagine that the problem would be where to draw the line. Air displays of course cover a very wide area compared to the much more limited "fallout zone" of a motorsport event. I grew up in Shoreham, and watched every airshow from the beach or more often from Mill Hill on the South Downs to the north of the airfield, a good distance from the paying spectators. I was frequently overflown (most memorably at low level by a Vulcan). I don't think it would be practical to close these outlying areas and all the transport links - in Shoreham this would include the coast road, the A27 and the railway. Possibly the harbour entrance too, depending on routings.

I gave up posting on this thread because any other opinion than it was just one of those things that happens, nobody's fault really, got taken down. It seems like a head in the sand position.

Hi Effluent Man. That wasn't my intention. Clearly this kind of incident can't be allowed to happen again. I just think that for Shoreham it would be impractical to shut everything down as there are very limited alternatives for anyone who isn't involved in the airshow. The easiest solution would be to stop holding airshows in locations such as this, something I would be very sad to see happen

defer dog and pax britanica

We are clearly at cross purposes.

I was not talking about widespread areas but just about the existing regulations which require police signs to be put up on roads that cross the display line which say no parking or viewing. They normally cover a few hundred yards.

It is this that I am suggesting could be policed quite easily. You might care to read post 507 (?) from A and C which discusses this point as well.

It wasn't aimed at you, sorry if it appeared that way. No, I merely posted that somebody got something wrong. It wasn't aimed at the pilot or the organisers. It was just an observation that for eleven people to get killed something went wrong.

Mr Farley

its a good point and do not disagree with you that some areas altho 'public' clearly represent a high risk. A good example being recently at I think Waddington where an F16 (again i think) nearly took out a few spectators by being very low on approach and standing around in the undershoot area is clearly dangerous and as you said is asmall well defiend area that could be coned off.

A and C

I am glad to say that you are wrong about the closure of PUBLIC roads in the UK mainland for motor sport events. It doesn't happen! It occasionally happens in N Ireland, but not elsewhere in the UK.

The "roads" used for stage rallies are all privately owned, in many cases by the Forestry Commission and the safety regime involved, aimed at ensuring spectators don't stand in risk areas is very well developed.

Meanwhile, this week many hundreds of miles of PUBLIC roads are being closed for lengthy periods for the passage of the Tour of Britain bike race causing not inconsiderable inconvenience to many!

This tragedy will have negative effects on the whole airshow business, both those who create and those who spectate, not least through insurance limitations. It is already reported that a multi aircraft Spitfire formation is unlikely to overfly London soon for this reason