A rudimentary google would reveal to any scribbler that Flt Lt Egging was the eighth person to lose their life in a crash involving the Red Arrows.

However, the Telegraph seems to be correct in it being the first fatal accident at a public display, all the others occuring during practice.

Earl, Pilotmike, I apologise. Poor attention to detail on my part, rapid read of the posts early in the morning and still feeling a bit raw about losing another colleague and then reading a whole bunch of unintelligent speculation about the cause, this mornings Telegraph is a cracker. The MAAIB will get to the bottom of it idc. I have my theories, based around experience of the Hawk, display flying, and a whole host of other military flying experience. However, those I will keep to myself at this time.

Another forum I frequent does a similar thing where to even view the 'incidents' sub-forum requires a minimum number of posts by the forum member.
If anything, it would cut down on the moderator workload.

Was the crash at a public display? I thought the display was on the sea-front at Bournemouth and the accident happen on recovery to Bournemouth airport some 4nm away.

PM

Albert Driver wrote:

I take it you haven't been following the AF447 thread on Tech...

I came on here as a former helo FTE with an avid interest in all aspects of flight safety, fixed and rotary wing, expecting.. sorry.. HOPING to read some information regarding saturdays tragic events, from which I could draw my own opinions on what was obviously sh1te and what was informed opinion. Instead I and many other ppruners are treated to YET ANOTHER multi-page example of self proclaimed experts (Apparently by virtue of having a Pilots licence) telling those who dare infringe upon their hallowed forums, what they should and should not say. Do you really feel the need to scour the media reports and then come on here carping about inaccuracies? Of course they are inaccurate you bellend, they are writers, not engineers, military types or pilots.. you seriously expect your average civvy to know the difference between a squadron, a regiment or a bloody flotilla?? Get a grip!

Finally, Oh great aviators (for which I am truly humbled to be in your presence) I put it to you that only current serving or recent former members of The Red Arrows are really experts on this matter, so should we not limit posting rights further to these guys?

RIP Flt Lt Egging - By your achievements you were a fine aviator, and part of a team which represent the United Kingdom with skill and professionalism globally, for that you should be remembered and held in the highest regard.

PS- I give this post 20 minutes before it's deleted or I'm banned. :ugh:


Edit: Why? Do you think that swearing is a forte of yours and you have the right? Did you think it was clever to swear? It is against PPRuNe rules and the next time you will be banned. Your choice!

Apologies, it was used in the context of expressing extreme frustration at another serious thread being overtaken by self proclaimed substitute mods, thus diluting, if not completely erasing the relevance of the thread itself.. and I'm from Stirlingshire, swear words, as you consider them, do in fact form part of our native vocabulary.. Its an illness you know.

Hear, Hear.
Let's just ignore the duff posts. The Mods are doing a good job of getting rid of most of the rubbish.

I got up to "a hamster wheel of chinese whispers " ... and couldn't continue.

you guys are awesome, I just want you to know.

Progress?
 

As a multi-year lurker, I'm finally moved to post:

Might I suggest that the ‘social’ problems which this thread is evolving to debate are an inevitable consequence of the ‘progress’ made during the past decade in the field of personal communications.

I would suggest that it is this communication technology which both feeds and encourages the constant insatiable desire for immediate gratification, that in turn causes a vast number of people to want to discuss, analyse, decide and communicate (or what passes for that process in their minds) ad nauseum.

Moreover they appear to engage in the process without regard for whether they have anything factual or positive to contribute.

I assume that in their mind they have validated their right to respond (contribute?) by artificially enhancing the (perceived by them) value of their contribution.

It’s no different to the irritatingly big-mouthed thick kid at school who would ‘contribute’ because he knew no better. The only difference is that on the internet there aren’t thirty other kids to instantly shout the kid down so that after he’s done it a few times he knows his place in life.

I frequent a couple of specialist car web-sites where, when an owner reports a particular problem and asks for advice, it is almost guaranteed that he will receive such helpful replies as “can’t help you myself but I hope you get it fixed…”, or; “it’s a shame you’re not in Aberdeen, cos my local garage is wonderful with these”, or even; “…yeah, my old <insert make and model> used to do that, but we sold the car before we figured out what was causing it.” :ugh:

Do these people really think that such ‘contributions’ are what the internet was invented to facilitate?? Well yes, actually, clearly they do!

And let’s be honest; there are some discussions on here relating to the weapons and sensors capabilities of some of our own platforms that contain very little more than ill informed conjecture and disinformation – some of it from those presumably serving who ought to know better. Some of it also containing a level of political naïveté that is breathtaking when one considers that it relates to potential export opportunities.:ugh:

(Those who recognise me from my handle will also know that I am moderately well informed and could offer correction – but have resisted the temptation thus far )

I appreciate that none of the examples above relate to anything more than metal and money, and can in no way be compared to a tragedy that involves a loss of life or lives.

Unfortunately I fear that the modern media that allows us to engage in such mass discussion, often in such inane ways, has also, possibly unwittingly, allowed us to spectate and then speculate with a feeling of remoteness and detachment that can to the unwary result in a form of autism where the emotional aspect or consequence is ignored – much to the discomfort and/or fury of others.

Thus when the subject is a tragic event such as Saturday’s (RIP Flt Lt Egging); and when emotions are running high, some of the speculation is done without thought for human social norms, personal etiquette or common courtesy.

The fact that it is done in ignorance is, I entirely agree, no defence, but I must ask you: what are the alternatives?

• Switch off the internet?
• Put a 48 hour delay into all reported news?
• Shout the thick kid down by means of a brief temporary ban until the lesson is learnt?
• Take a personal decision not to contribute further (after all it’s their loss, isn’t it?)?
• Go off and form a carefully guarded clique into which only the virtuous are permitted entry? (bit blooming lonely in there isn’t it Billy?)

I don’t pretend to have the answer, but we must recognise and possibly tolerate the social malaise that sadly comes hand-in-hand with the benefit of instant communications for all without the benefit of instant brains for all.

End of sermon

For the UK or listeners on line...

Listening to Radio 2...The Vine show....The Reds are to be discussed soon.

Chris.

A classic quote from the Metro,
"A bird could have caused a complete loss of power by extinguishing the flame in the Hawk-T1 jet's engine."

The reporter probably heard somewhere that the remains of a hawk had been found at the scene. At least they got "aerobatic" right.

Never having flown fast jets, hope the serious contributors to this thread will humour a couple of naive questions.

When you break formation to recover on to base leg for landing, could this ever involve more g – or a lot of it for longer – than the display itself? I've always assumed that, by definition, you are dumping speed at idle thrust, so any high g would be too short-lived to induce g-lock. But you might pull a lot momentarily for positioning purposes. Is that correct?

Secondly, have there been any pilot incapacitations on Hawks caused by bird-strikes?

PS: grizzled, you have a point...

Zulu 10...

Thank you for that well written and well thought out post. Your observations are applicable not just to this thread, forum, or website, but to all our communications today.

grizz

I don't see any difficulty. Plenty of other sites have dealt with this problem.

Start kicking people off permanently, letting everyone know it's being done and people soon get the message.
Those who write pointless ignorant posts and those who just want to troll soon realise the game is up and go elsewhere.
If this is not done on this site soon then everone else will go and leave the adolescents here.

Jon Egging's loss was a very public tragedy - not only because it happened just after an airshow appearance but also because he was a member of the Red Arrows. It's the latter that seems to have driven the public response this week, with comments such as "he was one of the few". It smacks of the cult of celebrity.

I'm sure he'd have been among the first to play down such 'showbiz' status and remind the public the RAFAT represents and promotes the wider air force and all that it stands for. The eulogies for one of the best pilots of his generation are all thoroughly deserved, but let's not forget that the loss of RAF aircrew in flying accidents, or even on ops, rarely generate this much coverage. Indeed, we all know of such incidents that, sadly, didn't make it to the national TV news.

Maybe I'm missing something...
 

Those demanding people should be banned for life for "ill-informed conjecture" might want to consider that members of his own family are coming up with likely unfounded theories (unless she knows more than has been released to the public so far), and placing them in a context more likely to be seen by other members of the family:

Second Red Arrows pilot forced to make emergency landing following bird strike
Conjecture is a very human thing to want to do, it would seem. Or it could just be the Telegraph reporter is incredibly callous in tracking her down and pressing her for an idea as to what happened.

The entire Hawk T1 fleet is currently grounded. Anybody any idea on how long that ban might be in place for? How many are still operational? My (limited) understanding is that these are now only used at Valley and Leeming for training purposes, but were being phased out and replaced with Hawk 128s with digital cockpits, so students didn't run screaming when being pulled from one of these and being dropped into a Typhoon...

P.S. - been reading PPRuNe for a while, this thread - and the sanctimonious attitudes some are showing - has prompted me to finally sign up. This is my first post. I look forward to enjoying discussing all things aviation with some of you in less sad and tragic threads than this.

Going a little bit sideways on this thread , I just read on the Fairford/RIAT website , that one of the incidents at RIAT this year was a bird-strike on a Hawk aircraft at the air show , 1st. time I'd heard about this .:confused:

Despite having lost several friends and colleagues in military accidents, and flown too many casualties resulting from brit mil operations, I was still shaken as I stood on the beach in Bournemouth having heard that one of the a/c I'd just seen display had not made it back to Bournemouth Airport.

It's still true that aviation can be a very unforgiving job/pastime. Hopefully they'll find the cause soon - before all the braindead speculate to destruction.......

Agreement - Zulu 10
 

Sir,

Now that you have stopped "lurking" please, please continue with your commonsense postings on this site. I try not to get worked-up at my age, but many of the posts here have been absolute rubbish!!! I know it is a "Rumour" site and I also remember the original P/O Prune, however, I think that he was probably more humane and accurate!!:ok:

Just seen this! Not familiar with that paper so maybe someone can enlighten me on it's reputation??


Red Arrows pilot Jon Egging's jet 'may have hit bird' | Metro.co.uk

BW

It doesn't really have one, apart from being the bane of rubbish collectors on the capital's rail network. Put it another way, I'd be surprised if it got a scoop on any major news story.

Sadly that has a lot to do with at least one poster (possibly more) posting under a series of aliases, asking the same questions every few pages or so, and people attempting to be helpful to them (including myself for some time) not spotting the pattern. To be honest, given how prolific said poster is, I'm impressed it has stayed as on-target as it has for as long as it has.

As for this one, all I can say is that it's a rotten shame, whatever the cause turns out to be. As someone who has been awestruck by the Reds and many other display flyers out there, be careful out there, folks!

For G-CPTN

You asked earlier about inverted ejection. The limitation on the Hawk when I flew it (1979-80) was that you could eject inverted as low as 350 ft provided you had no rate of descent.

In level flight g is equal to the reciprocal of the cosine of the angle of bank. It is unrelated to airspeed. A 60º inclined turn in a PA28 at 120knots gives the same g as a 60º inclined turn in a Typhoon at 500knots - that is to say 2g.

Having checked the MB website, and the sequence of events following initiation of an ejection, It seems strange that Flt Lt Egging was found with his chute, yet the seat apparently was still in the plane / cockpit wreckage?

I seem to recall many years ago a Harrier(?) flying unmanned over the irish sea, apparently due to inadvertant firing of the drogue on the seat.

FT

I can't find it now but I thought that the guys who found him found the seat first in the river then the parachute.

Exascot - Yes the reports seem sketchy, and my comment that the seat was in the cockpit wreckage was an assumption based on loose reports. I note a lack of witnesses to seeing the parachute in the air??

To All Posters
 

He was a very competent military flier who died doing his job . He joins the list of those who have done the same over many years. We salute him, his wife and his team, each of whom could have suffered the same fate. We don't know what happened, we should wait and see. I hope the Arrows will continue to thrill the crowds.

All very sad and my thoughts go out to Flt Lt Jon Egging's remarkable widow, his family, friends and colleagues in the team. I hope that the true facts emerge quickly so that they may know with certainty what went wrong and find their peace.

I sincerely hope that the team recovers from this tragedy and survives the next round of defence spending cuts that threatens their continued existence. Some MP's have recently (before the accident) expressed the view that the £8.8m per annum budget is money wasted.

The show of public support that has been evident this past few days must surely speak for itself: the Red Arrows are one of the few things left in Britain that we can still legitimately be proud of. They are the best. They must keep flying ... at any cost.

I too feel a kinship with the Red Arrows. I'm neither British nor a military fast jet pilot, just a civilian corporate pilot who served his US military time in Europe over two decades ago. While there, I had the opportunity to see the team perform at Farnborough in '88. I too would like to see them continue to represent the UK with style and pride. I hope it works out that way.

Military flying in general and jet demo flying in particular is by it's nature an activity which exposes it's participants to a higher level of hazard than most other organized flying. It's testament to the professionalism and skill of these team members that mishaps are as rare as they are. Yet still the occasional mishap will unfortunately occur. It's the nature of the beast.

Whatever the cause(s) behind this one, it will be revealed in due course. Some of the speculation appears well reasoned and of course there is the rest. I don't mind withholding my conjecture until a few more facts are presented. There just isn't much reliable information to work with yet.

Best regards,

westhawk

Watching the Reds, as I have a number of times, makes me feel proud to be British. There is something about them that's just that little bit extra special over and above other nation's display teams.

As far as i'm concerned Jon Egging was a hero pilot who served his country with honour and died doing what he loved. He'll be greatly missed. RIP.

Been out of the loop for a couple of days.

I watched the SKY news interview of his wife and wanted to throttle the inane woman who interviewed her. I thought Flt Lt Eggings wife showed tremendous courage and bravery to speak about her husband so soon after this tragic accident.

Sincere condolences to all who knew Flt Lt Egging.

RIP John.

Indeed. Mrs Egging displayed incredible dignity and elegance in the face of her personal loss. She is an example to us all.

A number of the events in the operation of MB Mk10 seats fitted to the Hawk are initiated by the seat moving out of the cockpit and not the pulling of the black and yellow handle. Two of them (firing of the drogue gun and initiation of the barostatic time release) will result in parachute deployment and aircrew/seat separation. (The other two are canopy MDC firing as the seat starts to move and initiation of the rocket motor as the seat fully exits the cockpit). Operation of the manual override handle will also fire the drogue gun and initiate parachute deployment along with aircrew/seat separation, though the Hawk may have an interlock to stop that from operating unless the B/Y handle is pulled. The Harrier accident in the late 1980s is covered here

In October Jon Egging was due to take part in a charity cycle ride from coast to coast across the UK. This was with other Red Arrows and the RAF Historic Flight. It was to raise money for the RAF Association and the charity fly2help.
Donations may be made at :- Virgin Money Giving | Fundraising | Jon Egging's Coast-to-Coast Challenge

Cycle ride.
 

It would appear from the comments left in the last day or so, that John's widow, Emma will be doing the ride, in his memory. Now if THAT doesn't deserve a few quid from all and sundry, I don't know what does. I'm in for a tenner.

That's right - Thanks tezzer.

Owned by the same group as the Daily Mail.

I watched the Reds by accident at Whitby Regatta the week before - we had no idea the Regatta was on, we only called in so our little lad could watch a steam train and build a sandcastle and wondered why it was so busy ! I hadn't seen them for years and they were fantastic of course - so sad to be reading this a week later.

More 'helpful speculation' here: Flash of &lsquo;fire&rsquo; on doomed Red Arrow | The Sun |News DTel has also picked up the story, so it must be true. Unless, of course, what our spotter photographed is an anti-collision light. Perhaps the header should have read "Flash of 'fire' inside light bulb on doomed Red Arrow".... However, the sub caption is absolutely spot on: "Light caught on film moments before crash." :ugh: