I think it is more than that.

I think it is about pride.
I think it is about a pursuit of excellence.
I think it is about demonstrating to the world that our pilots are "the best"

These things might not be direct capability, but as "soft" power they have their place.


Incidentally, the decision to stop them displaying at Farnborough tells the world the exact opposite.

It sends a message that we have no backbone. We are weak.

maybe it also sends the message that we don't like to risk killing innocent bystanders????

personally I think the ban is OTT but then I'm not the guy who has to carry the can if it goes wrong.............................

Yes, I think that the RAF being so constrained by pant-wetters that the nations premier display team, one of the countries most recognisable symbols of excellence, will not be displaying at one of the worlds premier aviation trade shows despite an enviable safety record purely because a civvy singleton jet crashed into some bystanders once in half a century could just about be described as "OTT"

Seconded Tourist and well said!

@Heathrow
I think one of the problems is the lack of accountability, the ban is OTT because Shoreham got huge press coverage including some intrusive reporting on Andy Hill by some grubby reporter.

Who is going to stand up and make a totally rational decision based on proven facts? If we keep bowing to the H&S brigade, one day we'll be so far over we'll realise we've had pain in our posterior for a long time.

Tourist, it is a fact of modern life that whenever a 'neglible risk' event or 'unforeseen risk' occurs then positive action has to be implemented to avoid any blame should if reoccur.

The corollary is that an obvious road safety measure is only implemented after avoidable deaths have occurred.

Pontius Navigator
 

1500ish mainly innocent people killed on the roads every year. By your argument why have we not banned cars?
What is to stop say a Red Arrow collision en route, dropping bits of aircraft on a main road, or at the end of their F boro flypast over built up areas? Surely they should only ever fly over open spaces or the sea if possible. Avoiding boats of course.
Or possibly disband, zero risk, bingo.

It is a fact, yes, but it shouldn't be!!

When a one in a million chance occurs, as they are wont to do about once in a million times, we should say "that's as expected. lets carry on as we are" not try to make it never in million times.

Flying cannot be done without risk.

Cessna, when we flew with live 1000lb bombs we were required to route clear of towns. The bombs were in a bomb bay and could only drop had we selected jettison. Operationally that went out the window and we pretended to our friends that we were unarmed.

As you rightly point our, cars kill. Rather than ban cars, or air shows, or aircraft, we !mitigate the risk by eliminating 3-lane roads, building dual carriageways, imposing speed limits, speed cams, breathalyser s etc etvc.

No, we have not even begun to do the obvious things that would save hundreds of thousands of lives a year.

Helmets in cars. Irritating but easy.
5 point harnesses. Easy
Annual license test. Not easy but effective
Annual medical
Speed limiters
Average speed checks on all roads
Mandatory soft coverings on all cars.


He list is endless, but for some reason despite 1.25 million deaths per year we ignore it and focus on the futile endeavour of trying to make the safest things in life safer to the detriment of enjoyment.

Perhaps it is because some tasks just seem to big. Where to begin with cars?

Pontius, are you suggesting that there is a dedicated agency that regulates road safety (Highway Code), imposes safety defences (barriers, speed limits) and enforces it where necessary (Police), in order to protect all road users, because no activity is without some form of risk?? Would it be fair to say that such measures weren't all installed from day one, but instead EVOLVED over time or events on the basis of common sense and learned experiences, some of which may have been tragic? Perhaps an accident involving many deaths that gripped the public eye?

If that's the case I'd argue that the risk of the Red Arrows crashing into a built-up area ivo Farnborough - and the concomitant societal impact it would have - has just been reduced (in both severity and likelihood) by a regulator introducing an evolved measure. Or, to put it bluntly, doing its job.

The great John Derry's displays were also popular at Farnborough.....and regs were changed after his (and others') death.

MSOCS, not one agency but a plethora of them. Locally it is county road safety partnerships. On the strategic road network it is the Highways Agency. On manufacturers it will be EU directives and regulations.

There is no single supra agency but yes, it evolves.

Some manufacturers take the lead: SAABs with day running lights, now an EU regulation.

Pontius, you just brought the EU into it - you've really done it now!

Airshows over the sea are also affected. Minehead 2016 has been cancelled due to a massive hike in insurance costs.

Something must be done.

:*

Mel, I have?

But what about the better authorities, higher speed limits and cheaper fuel?

I'm slightly surprised that anybody on here is putting forward the example of road safety regulatory systems and their evolution as something that anybody would wish to emulate.

Tourist, it was used as an analogy, not the exemplar. 🤔

I hear consideration being given to the closure of Heathrow. It has been pointed out that many times a day, large high energy jet aircraft, some of them over 20yrs. old, carrying hundreds of people, pass over extremely busy roads. Is this an acceptable risk? Perhaps the roads under the flight paths should be closed during the operational hours.
If an accident occurred many innocent bystanders may be hurt.

This expression always puzzles me. It raises the question of who or what are the guilty bystanders?

Me too, thats why I used it!
Emanates from the newspaper Shoreham reports I think.

Cessnapete. Please tell me that you're not seriously comparing the risk of a 4-engined airliner that rarely exceeds a Rate 1 turn, approaching LHR at c.150kts, with 9 single-engined jets, some of which fly to miss each other at closing speeds in excess of 700kts!

Fair point, the airliner is in a far less riskier environment that a balbo of the best of the best.

The Darwin Award candidates who ignore the warning signs at the end of the runway at St Maarten. A rock or a bolt hitting you at speed can do a lot of harm.

At the current rate of display team crashes, it probably is.

Perhaps the phrase 'innocent bystanders' should be interpreted as third parties who are not associated with the event. They could, perhaps, be considered in a separate category to third parties associated with the event e.g. spectators of the event. But please note that I am not calling spectators guilty!!!

This is true, but risk assessments have to take into account various things.

The consequences of an airliner crashing into London are orders of magnitude worse than a hawk.
The chance of any single airliner crashing into London during approach is orders of magnitude smaller than the chance of a hawk crashing, however the number of airliners making approaches into Heathrow is orders of magnitude larger than Reds displays....

More airliners have crashed into citys during the last 50 years than military display jets crashing into of airport crowds.....

What many here seem to not realise, is that this whole topic pertains to MILITARY JET displays, so any comparison with airliners is, frankly, futile. A team jet display that cannot meet the CAA requirements, post-Shoreham, is not at fault. They just don't have the time or funding to work up a Farnborough-friendly display and get it authorised in time. That's assuming such a thing is possible - which I highly doubt, given their multiple choreographies. Likewise, the CAA is doing its duty to protect the public and to try their best to ensure a Shoreham accident doesn't happen again.

All the comparisons I've read here are flawed in some way and are not fair. Right now the CAA are being vilified by the spotter community. It's a resentful reaction, mostly. Therefore the CAA are damned if they impose and damned if they don't. The real question is do you need to reform certain practices? Given a quick Google Earth overhead of Farnborough, I'm surprised higher-risk displays (I.e. Large teams) weren cuffed before Shoreham forced some navel gazing.

A passerby does not care whether they are killed by a military jet, an ex-military jet or an airliner.

The only thing that matters is sensible risk assessment, and it is perfectly reasonable to make comparisons with other users of the air to see if the military is imposing silly rules upon itself.

The Reds are not at fault, I don't think anybody is saying they are.

What is at fault is the current need to change something in aviation jst because some people die.

People are always going to die. That is a corollary of the idea that you set an acceptable risk level.

Any acceptable risk level accepts risk which accepts a death rate.
THAT MEANS YOU ACCEPT DEATHS.

If the death rate climbs above the set level, THEN change something.

Anything else is just a quest for perfect safety to detriment of all else. If that is really what we want then just cut out the faffing around and ground everything, because that is the only way to achieve perfect safety.

Tourist,


Did you feel that things needed to change after Ramstein, or was that an over reaction by 'pant-wetters' also?


Your comment about there having to be a sufficient body-count before any change is effected is the highest order of cynicism.


And while no one needs you to point out to them that death is a fact of life, not mitigating against it when a threat has been identified and the opportunity presents itself to do so is surely the very definition of stupidity.


No one is expecting or even striving for 'perfect safety' by limiting the Reds' display at Farnborough, they are just trying to reduce the risk of anyone dying pointlessly.

I think that after every crash, you should look at the circumstances, consequences, and look at the likelihood of it happening again.

You should then have a think as to whether there is a fix that will reduce the risk of it happening again.

This "fix" should then be balanced against the effect that the fix will have on accomplishing the task whatever that task may be.

If the cost/benefit analysis seems reasonable then implement the fix.

In the case of Rammstein, I personally think that the fix was worth it. It was linked to the causes of the accident and relevant.

The "fix" for the reds at Farnborough being "don't display" I think not. The crash was unrelated in so many ways.

I will rephrase that for you:-

"your comment about using empirical evidence rather than emotion and supposition before change is effected is the highest order of cynicism."

I think that the perfect person to make such decisions would be utterly cynical and untroubled by emotion.

There is only one conclusion if you truly believe that statement.
No matter how many incremental changes of ever reducing effectiveness we make, there will always be an opportunity to reduce it further.
Your statement can be shortened to "flying is the very definition of stupidity"

There must always be an acceptable level of risk, and WE MUST ACCEPT IT!


What is happening at Farnborough is worse than doing nothing.

Every aircraft flying presents a small risk to the public.

At least when they were displaying, they entertained, brought joy, showed the flag, impressed foreigners with our prowess, helped foreign sales etc etc.

Now, they will be airborne achieving nothing but embarrassing themselves whilst still adding some risk to bystanders.

The last crash did not happen during a display, but during the break to land. They will still be doing that I think.

Nothing would be more "pointless" than dying in the crash of the world's best display team not displaying.

It's more complex than that. The key bit here is 'uninvolved third parties'. It is a recognised principle in aviation regulation and safety management that the acceptable risk associated with third parties is lower than that of involved individuals. If the Shoreham Hunter had ploughed into the crowd line causing a similar number of casualties we probably wouldn't be having much of this discussion. We would have tweaked crowd lines and carried on. Crashing on a public road, killing uninvolved members of the public, opened Pandora's Box.

I do agree that there needs to be an acceptable number and the appetite for no deaths is neither practical nor reasonable; deaths are inevitable. After Shoreham, the UK (in the shape of civil and military regulator) decided that the existing risk level was unacceptable.

Spot on cgb! I don't think any of the regulars on here even know what scientific assessment went into the creation of the new regulations either. Modelling etc. All well and good for someone to spout hoop that it's an over-reaction, when they weren't in the room when this was being changed. They weren't presented with the assessments and considerations.

Quite right, MSOCS.
But ... by the same token, nor were we privy to the media-driven political pressures, either.

I side with Tourist about change only evolving after an event.

The road safety analogy is an example. Nearby there is a public footpath across a high speed bypass. Anyone crossing is assessing the risk of injury low and the council that the rate of risk is also low. Naturally there is no call for a footbridge.

Further up the road a child disembarking from a bus, where the speed limit was 60, was killed. There was a public outcry and a call for a 30 or 40 limit. The counculy imposed a 50 limit as only one fatal accident had occurred.

Action only results after empirical evidence of risk.

Well?

So I should just accept that a bunch of people I don't know, that I didn't vote for, using data that they have not shown me, have made decisions that I don't agree with, under pressure from politicians and the media and that's ok?!

I can do simple cost/benefit calculations in my head. It is a major part of being a pilot.

One accident in 50 years that hit passersby involving a civvy, singleton, historic should not modify the entire display community.

It is acceptable for 1 in a million chances to happen occasionally without knee-jerk reacting.

The aviation world has diverged from the rest of reality to an amazing extent. No other industry has anything like the safety record or anything like such extreme reactions to events.

It is only because it makes good telly. If nobody had filmed it, It would have disappeared in the noise.

Someone on the "Reds and Gay Pride" closed thread mentioned support of "Miss World". Until beauty contests became non-PC, we did - Cranwell, Sandhurst and Dartmouth in rotation provided the escorts for the contestants, other than the winner, at the celebration ball following the contest. And a good night was had by most............

Like Tourist I believe the reaction to Shoreham is over the top. There is as much risk of A380 bits falling into farnborough after an accident as the red Arrows doing a flypast.ie almost nil.
Also how do we know that debris will fall in the sterile area. There is no possibility of an airliner displaying at farnborough staying within the airfield boundary or avoiding built up areas.
The level of risk of a one off vintage jet accident, which randomly happened to fall onto a road rather than the many open areas around, does not pose such a risk as to decimate the UK display scene for ever.

Remember the decision was taken by the risk owner, the MOD, and not SBAC. Regardless of insurance, MOD self-insuring, there is the potential for more adverse publicity from a fatal accident than from a display cancellation.

Yes, and her acrobatics will no doubt be rewarded with a medal from the Worshipful Company of Dressers Diners and Stickwaggers for her services to CRM in GA.

I think, unfortunately, that this is the thought process.

I fail, however, to see how this is not true of every display they ever do.

Maybe Farnborough would have them overfly more than other displays, but all displays involve them overflying houses and roads at some point, even if only when landing.

If this is the future, why not just bin them now and blame it on the Hawk going out of service rather than the truth which is lack of senior officer backbone to shoulder miniscule risk.

If you have not got the b@lls to shoulder this risk, how would you be in war FFS!

p.s. that was directed at the weak decision makers, not you Pontious

While I agree with Tourist that this seems an over the top reaction, I wonder if there might be a deeper concern within MoD. Lord alone knows how it avoided prosecution in the Flt Lt Cunningham case and it would be interesting to see if the organisational failures revealed there have been corrected. After all, the same failures have kept the ATC fleets grounded (or paused) for over two years. Could it be Shoreham is a convenient excuse?