the reds
 

I saw the arrows at Weston s Mares combined air and armed forces day. Have to say it was the best display I've ever seen them do. Fantastic weather helped but the show was outstanding.

it goes against everything i stand for to say anything nice about the ill-mannered, grey slip-on shoe wearing chavs of the RAF, but the reds were fcuking amazing on saturday...:ok:

the AAC Lynx display was the dogs danglies, utterly brilliant - and much as i wouldn't want to cause strife between the services - the Navy Lynx wasn't half as good a display.. pity the wokka was only a flypast, but the Canbera was wonderfully noisy.

something pointy and very noisy required for next year methinks - some GR4's 3ft above the water, a very hard pull-up and lots of flares?

One thing you can say for is that they know that sentences and the days of the week begin with a capital letter. :ugh:

P1

Only seen them display on video so far this year, Portsmouth, Gilze and Karup, but it certainly looks a cracking show, befitting the 50th season. Just hope the engineering COC can keep them in enough serviceable jets. Red 10 was stranded in Bristol and has just made it back for the Estonia push.

How much longer will they be using the Hawk then and any thoughts on what they'll use after if they're still about ? I would have thought someon must be thinking ahead by now but as I'm not military you might know better.

The Hawk T1 has a few years left in it but if and when it is replaced in the RAFAT depends on budgets, affordability, public perception, political will and commercial sponsorship. BAe are apparently developing an austere version of the Hawk T2 as an aerobatic jet for a couple of overseas customers, including (I think) India and possibly Saudi. It would be nice for everyone if BAe could do a favourable deal for the RAF on the back of that.

It would be very sad if the Reds ceased to be, but their cost effectiveness for UK PLC has to be justified and they should not be at the expense of an operational capability.

In today's Daily Telegraph.

By Harry Mount

On Armed Forces Day at the weekend, the Royal Regiment of Wales marched proudly through Cardiff, led by a goat called Siencyn.
Siencyn is the latest in a long line of regimental goats, dating back to the Crimean War. Goats were originally taken into battle to be eaten. But, after one Welsh goat woke up a Private Jenkins during guard duty in the Crimea, and alerted him to an enemy soldier, he was adopted as the regiment's mascot.
In cold, objective terms, Siencyn, and the Goat Major who looks after him, are essentially a waste of taxpayers' funds. But – in sentimental, spiritual and ceremonial terms – they are priceless.
You can say the same of Bill Millin, the bagpiper who piped Lord Lovat onto the beaches of Normandy 70 years ago last month. And you can say it in spades about the Red Arrows, who also appeared at the Armed Forces Day – in Stirling – and are also under the threat of extinction.
This week, their leader, Squadron Leader Jim Turner, said the Government only has four years to save the RAF display team, which is celebrating its 50th year in the skies. The current fleet of Hawk T1 jets is only expected to last until 2018 – and, as yet, there has been no guarantee of a replacement. Already, the present crop is showing its age.
Normally, I'm ferociously anti-government spending. At a time when the country is broke – and the national debt is rising – government money is still splurged all over the place with all the carelessness of anyone spending someone else's money. So much for austerity.
But the Red Arrows are different. Just as with Siencyn, their value is impossible to quantify; but it is enormous all the same.
Like Siencyn, they are a ceremonial quirk for the armed forces – and the public – to attach their loyalty and affection to. 32 years on, I still vividly remember seeing the Red Arrows at the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch – they'll be flying over the Grand Prix at Silverstone again this weekend.
At the age of 10, I was far from being a military child – I was much more of a mini-petrolhead. But it is the swooping, climbing formation of nine planes, trailing red, white and blue smoke, that I remember now; much more than I remember Niki Lauda's victorious McLaren. Looking back at my photo album, I see that I took five pictures of the Red Arrows and only two of Niki Lauda.
You can't monetise – to use a horrible word – that sort of childhood memory. But, if that's what you want to do, it's worth its weight in gold as a recruitment device; and as one of the most robust strands of the web that binds a country's people to its armed forces. Let that web fall apart, and you let the country's national and international security fall apart.
The Red Arrows give more than just sentimental value. They may cost a lot more than Siencyn but they are also more cost-effective. Among the beneficiaries is the British aerospace industry. Which Saudi potentate – chequebook in hand, longing to top up his national airforce – could fail to be moved, as I was at Brands Hatch, by the Red Arrows' gravity-defying feats, performed with peerless precision and unity?
It doesn't take much to imagine those feats transferred to a warzone. As indeed they often are. All nine Red Arrows pilots are recruited from frontline RAF squadrons. And, once they've completed their three-year tour with the display team, they return to RAF duties.
If the Government axed the Red Arrows tomorrow, they would save a few million pounds. But it would be as cost-effective in the long run as killing the golden goose – or eating the regimental goat.

That is a good piece of writing, and thinking. Thanks

Agreed, Well put, Clockwork Mouse.

The new fins are absolutely stunning.

http://i1367.photobucket.com/albums/...psd552fde9.jpg

As I struggle to write copy for a new website, I read Mr Mount's prosaic article above and realise how inadequate I am.
Lovely piece.

No they're not, they're absolutely gopping! :yuk:

If nothing else they look like an advert for the Lying Scotsman (damn keyboard is missing its F key!) :ok:

Not sure about the tails, but can't wait to see them at Farnborough.....

S41

"Eating the Regimental goat" - wonderful!

Reminds me of watching the "tethered goat" nerve agent film at Winterbourne Gunner. A Gunner half colonel leant across to the CO of a Welsh regiment -"Your goat, I think" he half whispered - outbreak of only half mock fisticuffs.

Watched their Goodwood Festival of Speed runs on big screen. Who was screaming the breaks/changes/smoke at near hysteria level? Didn't seem to enhance the display one iota.

When you're pulling 6 G and have micro seconds to miss the other bloke closing on you at 800 kts it must be hard to transmit in measured tones.

What a brilliant piece of writing from The Telegraph. Sums it up exactly

Genstab,

It's got very little to do with G or closing speeds, they do it checking in and taxiing out. It is an appalling nasty little habit that they've had for years that does them no credit. For a bunch of very nice blokes (certainly the ones I know) who fly stunning displays it is a piece if unprofessionalism they could do without.

Yes, I miss the measured tones of Ian Dick, Dickie D and Frank (RIP) Hoare.:)