Point of order: I suspect only one of those photos (of the Typhoon) unequivocally shows an aircraft at less than a hundred feet. Lenses and angles and things intervene here.

P

Point of order? They're just a couple of illustrations provided with very little effort to reseach to show that aircraft do fly low over people near airports in response to,"I greatly doubt jets are passing 100 feet over roads like the A27."

Which is why we treat amateur video clips of incidents with caution and resist the temptation to draw too many conclusions from them.

Before we get too sophisticated with our thinking re: lens and angles. What metric is used for oversight? Isn't it the case that an FDD is doing nothing more than using his eyes in combination with experience and the framework of regulation to take a view?

In which case one assumes the entry to the accident figure was judged to be OK and that viewpoint is able to be explained? Therefore the height argument can be closed?

What exactly is your height argument/question?

What are you suggesting?

It is not quite so simple, and more than one pair of eyes is used, but essentially yes.

This is not unreasonable.

Eyes are very different from cameras, and have a far wider field of view enabling better SA of what is going on.

It's a stement of fact. I can't see what clarification you think "anyone" should have given or why they would need to.

As for measuring separation distance, I gather you would like to see heightfinding radars installed at every airshow with a team of trained personnel to monitor every display. A very practical and worthwhile idea. By the same token, let's have speed cameras covering every part of every road in Britain and an army of analysts - it is, after all the only way to be absolutely certain that no one ever drives too fast.

I'm suggesting that this shouldn't be a point of debate at all in Feb 2016.

I'd have thought that when the Sept 2015 AAIB bulletin printed some numbers that got turned into headlines that someone from the CAA, BADA or individuals involved with delegated authority could have put those numbers into some sort of context.

I've not seen that done to date. Why? Perhaps an aviation journalist could ask the question of the relevant body/person and publish a clear picture in a magazine? That would be value add wouldn't it?

It seems a little unfair to let a pilot dangle for 6 months under the cloud of these numbers if all was deemed to be well.

I personally would totally agree with that. It is perfectly reasonable it just seems to date nobody who had that authority feels it appropriate or has enough confidence to comment, when in other matters they have been very quick indeed.

I find clarification is needed because it led to these headlines:-

Shoreham Air Show plane crash: Pilot was too low, official report reveals - Telegraph

Which we are saying is untrue and I'd have thought that various bodies involved would like to correct that. Why not? If Flying Lawyer (or anyone else) has any beef with unfairness then those who have the knowledge and have not spoken up are the worse offenders are they not?

You haven't been paying attention. Both the DT and the AAIB are saying the manoeuvre was started from 200 feet agl. That does not need clarifying. The "too low" comments came from people who weren't even there who don't understand that it is possible to enter an aerobatic manoeuvre from one altitude and exit at a higher one through energy management - something fast jet pilots here will fully understand.

So, again, the manoeuvre was started from 200 feet and, all other factors aside*, it is perfectly possible to complete the manoeuvre safely from there.

* By which I mean no mechanical or physiological issues.

Hi Pittsextra, I am an aviation journalist, and I'd like to ask you a question;-
do you have any relevant (ie FJ) experience? Any at all? I don't think you do, because you quite clearly either refuse to understand or fail to understand that flying aerobatics in a jet is simply not the same as flying aerobatics in a light piston. I've done a bit of both and trust me - they're just not the same.

Hang on I'm sorry so the figure was started at 200ft and all prior talk of others about pitch angle, video, lens and perspective is irrelevant?

Look I'm not making an issue with the ability to do X, Y and Z from one height to exit at another but I'm asking what the numbers should have been and where do they come from?

Its perfectly possible to complete safely because its in the plan, its been practiced and agreed with those with oversight on the day?

Sorry to drag this on and on but its important detail isn't it? If it was agreed, practiced and in the plan doesn't someone party to that information owe it to everyone with a care about aviation to clarify that point? If nothing else it looks like we had a plan.

Edited to answer Dave Unwin above:- I do not have fast jet aerobatic experience and happy to believe you and half a hundred other people saying "they are not the same". Yet what has any of that got to do with the questions I've asked? I didn't grant his DA, which as I'm led to believe from the AAIB document has two heights 100ft and 500ft for different events. I assume those numbers were in some way intelligently assigned - unless they weren't??.

I'm just surprised given the time between today and the negative headlines that have hit the pilot and aviation in general that if everything done was totally cool and in the plan, nobody has supported this view. You don't think from your professional view its worth a phone call to the CAA or BADA and ask the question "what do you think of that Telegraph headline?"....

I get the distinct impression you keep pushing for someone, CAA, BADA, individual or delegated authority to publicly announce it could have - may have - might have been pilot error in advance of the final AAIB report. Its becoming tiresome that you keep banging on about the same points without listening to others who have experience in FJ displays.

FL said:

"Further, and importantly, the pilot's account of what happened is not yet known - assuming that he is able to recall the details. It is by no means unusual for someone who has gone through such a traumatic experience not to be able to recall."

Following the Police interview reported in December, we should assume that the pilot's account is known by some. Although it is indeed not unusual for memory to be severely impaired following such an event, might media speculation gleaned through access to newspapers that were provided by visitors to a patient recovering from an induced coma not influence unduly any memory of the event that may remain, or indeed create scenarios that did not exist?

Negative. The cause of the crash could be anything but it doesn't prevent seeking clarity on events up to that point. I don't see CAP403 as a fast jet only document and nothing that relates to the point being debated seems to place any special application to fast jets. I just wanted to know what the situation was and as we can see there is huge push back to answer what should be a very straight forward question.

Is the Daily Telegraph headline wrong and why?

OK Pittsextra, so we've finally ascertained that - despite pontificating at length about aerobatics in Hunters, you don't have any Hunter - or indeed FJ - experience at all.
Do you have any aerobatic experience? Or even any flying experience at all?
To answer your question as to why I haven't made enquiries, its quite simple - and dozens of people have already tried to tell you this;- I - and they - don't know enough about it.
There's only one thing that the people who populate this forum and can fly know with any real certainty - that they don't know enough to comment.
When the report is published and I've had the chance to study it and discuss it, then I may either make comment or ask questions. That is how professionals work.

Dave - last one from me as it has gotten silly - I accept my own part in that before it gets the hackles up - but actually I didn't pontificate at all about aeros in a Hunter (show me the post). Like I said before nothing in CAP403 relating to the issues of height or figure being flown is specific to the Hunter.

You haven't made enquiries because you don't know.... yes that is probably why you would make enquiries? Perhaps to the people that might know enough about it... The second page of CAP403 gives this:-

Enquiries regarding the content of this publication should be addressed to:
General Aviation Unit, Safety
and
Airspace Regulation
Group,
Civil Aviation Authority,
Aviation House, Gatwick Airport South,
West Sussex RH6 0YR

Maybe that could be a starting point? It isn't as if this isn't a big enough aviation story.

Oh no you don't Pittsextra - you admit that you don't have any Hunter - or indeed FJ - experience at all. But you haven't answered the rest of my questions. For the removal of doubt, here they are again;-

Do you have any aerobatic experience? Or even any flying experience at all?

All I've ascertained with any certainty is that you have read at least parts of CAP403 - and I'm afraid a 12-year old can do that
I have those addresses, thank you. As I said, when the report is published, if there are any gaps or inconsistencies then that will be the time to make enquiries. Anything else would be a bit previous, IMHO. Another point that you resolutely refuse to acknowldedge is that the accident is still under investigation.

PS Do you have any aerobatic experience? Or even any flying experience at all?

Maybe "Pittsextra" should read para 5.58 again, "pulling though the vertical" and think about the actual manoeuvre conducted, it may clarify his fixation about commencing an aerobatic manoeuvre at 200ft.

I now have absolutely no idea what point point you are trying to make. You have shifted your arguments so many times that you have completely lost me.

Lomcevac, myself and others have repeatedly explained that you can legally pull up from 200 feet and go into an aerobatic manoeuvre, which then has a 500' msd. As the manoeuvre is completed it is acceptable to decend back to 200' msd if the next manoeuvre is not aeros. The discussion about pitch angles came from your question about how the pilot avoids doing aeros before he reaches 500 feet - ignore that, it's irrelevant.

So, AS FAR AS WE KNOW AT THE MOMENT, he pulled up from a 200 foot pass into a quarter clover, which is both safe and legal and approved. He would have needed to attain a gate which enabled him to complete the manoeuvre by 500' msd, but he could have decended to 200' msd if required by the next element in the sequence.

If you haven't understood what people have been telling you many times now, it is because you keep fixating on things that might have been wrong and because you are mixing terminology. If you still do not understand then just accept that the manoeuvres were approved, safe in their design and adheared to the regulations. Now you don't need to keep on and on asking similar questions and confusing whether you are dealing with a safety issue, a display practicality, a regulation or the perception of what happened.

Leave it there.

Well said Courtney!! (And DaveUnwin...nice one!)