The man's an idiot paranoid knobhead, plain and simple. Mainly simple.

What an utter tosser.

Protesters
 

Protesters are an unreasonable breed in the main, most of them think that they can move into an area and stop any activity that they don't like. Be it aviation, motor racing, and even church bell ringing so don't expect any reasoned argument or behavior from them,

Most of them become obsessed with the protest and it takes over their lives to a point were they can justify to themselfs all sorts of stupid and dangerouse actions with the intention of furthering the cause. The actions of the protesters at Branscombe in Devon are typical with balloons flown, a shotgun meet arranged under the approach on the annual charity fly in day, stringing a wire across the runway at night and countless acts of petty vandalism.

Accusations of dangerouse flying are the protesters stock in trade, one Branscombe protester accused a pilot of very low flying over the village, this resulted in headlines in the local paper and worried the locals who know nothing about flying. It was fortunate that the aircraft was fitted with a GPS flight recorder and when the manufactures downloaded the data the aircraft was found to be climbing through 2500 ft and on the council approved noise abatement track rather than the alleged 100 ft over the village.
The pilot struck back an action in the courts, the result was the protester had to pay for a full page retraction to be printed in the local paper.

Most of the public don't have much time for the protesteres and only sign up to get them off the doorstep, the best thing to do is to is to run a charm offensive and at the same time counter the uninformed rubbish with fact, I know of one protester who presented noise numbers to a planning enquiry at an airfield with a 750 m runway, the airfield managment had to Point out to the enquiry that numbers quoted were for a Boeing 757 and so were not relivent, however the councilors on the enquiry would have taken these numbers at face value had a challenge not been made.

The worst thing you can do is nothing because the media will only report what they are told , the best weapon that you will have will be the truth as it usually counters the rantings of protesters and makes them look obsessive and slightly unbalanced, this undermines their cause in the eyes of the general public who by and large understand the need for trainning and support the armed forces need to do so on grounds of national security.

Good job there isn't 3 weeks of night flying coming up

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafvalley/flyinginfo/nightflying.

that would really upset him - although obviously because it's the kids he's worried about this won't be an issue will it ;-)

A and C

I understand the points you make, but must ask if you think it safe for fast jets to fly at 300ft for two miles across a built up area? Bearing in mind the possibility of failures and bird strikes.

And how would you measure that?
(a) on a straight course over a town
(b) during banked turns

Thanks,
Mike

Edit - 300ft MSD

Aircraft don't plan to fly at 300' MSD (or 250' MSD if you're any good) across built up areas full stop and they endeavour to stay around 2000' within 15nm of their home base to avoid cheesing off the locals (or at least that's what they do at the secret Oxfordshire Airbase).

250' MSD is measured by flying at either a Radalt or QFE 250' across the airfield and getting the picture in your head then maintaining that enroute. It's a best effort and I like to think that everyone nowadays would rather err on the side of being too high than the opposite in today's complaint and NIMBY-ridden society.

I have in front of me MAA/OP/04/Reg/Waiv/FlyDis12/02 which says differently.
Mike

And since I don't have that document with me on my sofa, why don't you share what it says?

The breakdown seems to suggest something to do with waivers to the rules for flying displays?

Mike-wsm
 

This is all a question of personal choice and risk assessment , you have chosen to live in a comparitvly rural area and near to an airfields that has been active with military aviation for the best part of seventy years, you should understand that when you moved in and if you dont like the risk move house, the danger is that you are likely to find that the risks change.

I would take a guess that you perceive the greatest risk to you is a military aircraft crashing on top of you, I would dearly exchange that risk for the dangers I face in semi-rural Buckinghamshire from 4x4's driven by middie class women who are distracted by screaming kids being collected from minor public schools, these people seem to find most other road traffic invisible.

Yes ...... May be Im playing to the crowd a little but on the list of things that kill people on the ground in the UK military aircraft ( well in fact all aircraft) are not near the top of the list, I think you need to revisit the numbers and regain your life from this obsession, the only problem is that you might find that the kitchen in your home will become out of bounds.....................statistically that is a really dangerouse place!

Mike - you clearly have an agenda that you are not being altogether clear about. You are making insinuations about the standards of military flying so can I ask you to state more clearly exactly what your problem/ accusation is? The vast majority of military aircrew perform their job, which for most of us is training for operations in a hostile operational area, to a rigorous set of orders and instructions. There will always be as in any field of human activity those who might step ouside the rules either deliberately or inadvertantly but to make broad brush accusations against the many because of the few is unfair.

Ken
 

I will await Mikes reply with interest, there is nothing like the facts to get in the way of a good rant!

Hi Guys,

Some sort of mistaken identity here, I live right in the middle of a seaside town with no operational airfield anywhere near.

My one concern is the display waiver which allows RAFAT to perform a rear entry 'Arrival Manoevre' over the crowd line. At a remote airfield and with a crowd who are there of their own volition this seems reasonable.

But in our case the display area is the sea, the crowd line is the beach, and the rear entry is two miles of bua at 300ft eyeball MSD with a liberal population of crows, gulls and the occasional heron.

My knowledge of aircraft safety and my research into recent display accidents do not combine to give a great degree of confidence.

Sorry I've been offline, had to recharge my tablet and walk into town to buy some veg.

Cheers,
mike-wsm

I presume "wsm" refers to Weston-super-Mare?

Shush! That's classified, I'm a Bristolian living here incognito...

I thought that "rear entry arrival manoeuvres" were the perogative of the Navy boys.

Mike

Explain on an open forum your concerns ref your research.

Sorry, 101, I'm not a media feeder. And as a non-mil it's time I bid you guys a fond farewell and headed back to the deep, dark, dank dungeons of JB.

Thanks for your kind hospitality,

All the best,
mike-wsm

I'm going to have to call BS on this.

As someone who spent a fair amount of time in Weston-super-Mud, having been posted to RAF Locking straight out of training, I can confirm that 'the sea' rarely makes an appearance in Weston, rather miles and miles of mud act as a poor substitute for all but the most fleeting of moments.

If the display area truly was the sea then the Red Arrows would have miles of space in which to reduce height without needing to pass over Weston at low level.

:E

Mike, if you are so concerned about things falling from the sky, you should stay indoors in case you are hit by a meteorite! You probably do anyway, judging by the number of posts you write each day.

And how, pray tell, does this have any bearing on routine ops at Valley?

Don't go Mike..