RAFAT DISPLAY LIMITATIONS....

[BEagle]

From the RAFAT site:

Red Arrows at Dartmouth Royal Regatta 2015

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is undertaking a comprehensive review of civilian air displays in the UK.

As part of this, in the last 48 hours, the CAA has amended the display permissions for the Dartmouth Royal Regatta. This affects all participants including the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows - scheduled to perform at the event tomorrow (Friday, August 28) at 1815.

It has been assessed that the required changes to display heights and positioning would have reduced the visual quality of the display for the public to an unacceptable level and therefore, with regret, the Red Arrows will not be conducting a full display at Dartmouth this year.

The Red Arrows recognise many people will have made plans and are looking forward to seeing the team perform. Not wanting to disappoint the public, the team will, instead, conduct two flypasts – not involving aerobatics – at the Dartmouth Royal Regatta, weather-permitting.

The decision does not affect the planned display at Clacton Airshow, scheduled for 1245 tomorrow (August 28).

All aspects of flying by the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team – wherever the Red Arrows are operating – is carried out subject to rigorous and well-established aviation safety rules.

[Wander00]

Guess that might knock out Fowey in future years -IMHO their "best" venue, the view from Polruan Head being outstanding

[Courtney Mil]

I wonder why they're not reverting the rolling or flat displays instead. Still count as aeros, I guess.

All aspects of flying by the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team – wherever the Red Arrows are operating – is carried out subject to rigorous and well-established aviation safety rules.

[Could be the last?]

Not sure of the specifics of Dartmouth, but considering where the Reds do their work up in Cyprus, I would have thought coastal displays would be the least risky going??

[Tourist]

Dartmouth is "coastal", but not in a land on one side, sea on the other kind of way.

Look on google earth and imagine a display line up the river.

The reason Dartmouth makes for a spectacular display is the same as Falmouth and Fowey.

They display up a narrow estuary with aircraft going over many many houses and roads and yachts

[Tourist]

My mind may be tricking me, but I seem to remember that we used to have a specific mention in the regs (318 blue pages?) about over water displays being extra dangerous and to give that consideration?

[Courtney Mil]

On this occasion, Tourist, your mind whispers some truth to you. :ok:

Same as the limitation about not spinning over the briney for all the same reasons. Texture and visual references.

[Minnie Burner]

"Any seagulls on the approach?"

Back on topic: I'm sure we've been here before.

[Corporal Clott]

Poor old ex-Reds Ted Girdler came a cropper over sea in a L-29 a few years back. The weather was classic 'gold fish bowl':

https://assets.digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/media/5422f9d5ed915d1374000773/dft_avsafety_pdf_501477.pdf

[Danny42C]

Annual Fatalities in Airshows in the UK (Source - Wiki):

(2015 - so far) 11. (2014) 1. (2013) 1. (2012) 1. (2011) 1. (2010) Nil. (2009) Nil. (2008) Nil. (2007) 1. (2006) 1. In all cases of "1", it was the pilot only who lost his life.

Comparable figures for Annual Road Fatalities in the UK (Source - Wiki - UK Department of Transport):

(2013) 1713. (2012) 1754. (2011) 1901. (2010) 1850. (2009) 2222. (2008) 2538. (2007) 2946.

With all due appreciation of the horror of the Shoreham accident, and with all sympathy for the victims and their families, might we be in danger of overreacting here ?

Just a thought.

Danny42C.

[salad-dodger]

Danny. You're comparing chalk to cheese. You need to come up with some way of making the figures of road deaths to airshow deaths properly comparable. You will need to factor in criteria such as number of journeys or miles travelled for the road deaths to criteria such as number of air shows, number of people in the local environs etc for air shows. Once you have done that then maybe, just maybe you can make some sort of comparison. It would also be worth factoring in the serious (life changing) injuries for the road deaths too.

Until you have done some exercise along the lines of the above, then any comparison is utterly meaningless.

I'm not arguing either way on the over reaction question by the way.

S-D

[Lima Juliet]

Danny

Your sample size for airshow fatalities is just too small. When it is that small then 'being lucky' skews the stats even more. Take the Car Fest accident, if the Gnat had come down on a surrounding campsite or road then we would probably not be having this discussion. With so few aircraft (fortunately) "coming a cropper" each year then the chances of someone losing their life is always going to be low, however, with the ever increasing population, traffic/housing densities and bigger events with ad hoc campsites or other outdoor activities to please the masses, then the likelihood of a further occurrence increases. So 'being lucky' is no longer applicable and hence I believe that the CAA have done the right thing.

I feel in part culpable because I displayed at Shoreham over 10 years ago and thought it was tight then. How many other aircrew have thought about this or other venues? However, now that the question of risk management of non-spectator areas is being asked, then I hope we will not see anything like this again for a very long time.

LJ

[ShyTorque]

I feel in part culpable because I displayed at Shoreham over 10 years ago and thought it was tight then. How many other aircrew have thought about this or other venues?

In the "bad old days" I declined my allocated display slot at RAF Chicksands because there was no notified display line. I still flew in but did a static display instead. Two other military helicopters carried out their displays directly over the crowd, one a role demo and the other a semi-aerobatic flight, which was ridiculous, totally unprofessional and totally irresponsible, in my opinion.

[Danny42C]

S-D (your #11) and Leon Jabachjabicz (your #12),

I take your points about the narrowness of the sample, and the other factors involved.

Perhaps I am approaching this with the mindset of at least two generations ago, when sudden death was simply part of the fabric of life; as we could do nothing about it, the best thing was to put it out of our minds. This may well seem callous to people today.

This mindset persisted well into the '50s (witness the Meteor training losses of that time) and the public (lack of) reaction to the Farnborough 1952 DH 110 accident, in which 29 spectators and 2 crew died. That event was the last British air show in which spectators were killed until the 2015 Shoreham Airshow crash in which 11 people died (Wiki - I shall have to edit my #10 ). There was no public outcry, air displays did not have to be cancelled in consequence, the Farnborough 1953 show took place as normal.

The only official reaction was to order that: "jets at air shows were obliged to keep at least 230 m (750 ft) from crowds if flying straight and 450 m (1,480 ft) when performing manoeuvres and always at an altitude of at least 150 m (490 ft)". (Wiki) As to that, I cannot improve on:

"That is very fine; but it is impossible to make the men perfect; the men will always remain the same as they are now; and no legislation will make a man have more presence of mind, or, I believe, make him more cautious; and besides that, the next time such an accident occurs, the circumstances will be so different, that the instructions given to the men, in consequence of the former accident, will not apply". — Isambard Kingdom Brunel, (Great Aviation Quotes).

Cut to today: last Saturday's Teeside Air Show has been hurriedly cancelled in toto ("postponed to next year" !) It does not affect me - I'm too immobile to attend - but a lot of people were deprived of a great pleasure.

Danny42C.

[camelspyyder]

I would classify the runway caravan staff at Syerston killed by a Vulcan in 1958 as spectators. And certainly non-aircrew victims. So this is not the first occasion of non-participant fatalities since 1952 (as widely and inaccurately quoted across the net in the last 10 days).

[Tourist]

camel

They were paid to be there, so I think spectators would not be the correct term.

[Photoplanet]

"They were paid to be there, so I think spectators would not be the correct term."



They were employed to be at that location... Is this the argument that portrays in the same context, the thousands of fatalities in the WTC destruction who were generically seen as the 'enemy' by the perpetrators...?

They were paid to be at that location for their working day also...

[Tourist]

Photoplanet

Wow.

No, I don't think those two situations have any link at all.

I merely said that they were not spectators.

I'm impressed. Linking a crash to the WTC terrorist attack is spectacularly tenuous.

[The Old Fat One]

I'm impressed. Linking a crash to the WTC terrorist attack is spectacularly tenuous

Fits right in here then doesn't it. Tenuous, specious & spurious are words well fitted to many of the judgments pronounced on here.

[GeeRam]

There was also a non-aircrew ground fatality at the SBAC show at Farnborough in 1968 when a French Navy Atlantic crashed into the RAE canteen during it's display on the first public day of the show - all five crew on board perished as well as RAE worker Fred Gould.

[camelspyyder]

Mr Gould, and the other unfortunates deserve recognition just as do the '52 Sea Vixen and '15 Hunter victims. It just seems to me disrepectful not to.

[Tourist]

Mr Gould, and the other unfortunates deserve recognition just as do the '52 Sea Vixen and '15 Hunter victims. It just seems to me disrepectful not to.

How very now.:yuk:

"recognition" as what?