Blades - blunted
 

2Excel Aviation have pulled the plug on the RAFAT retired pilots club ........

https://theblades.com/blades-january-2023/

Sign of the times. I wonder who will be next.

Mog

I still believe Airshows are being strangled by over the top regulations, hence the amount simply giving up trying to make a living from them..

I was expecting a thread about the SAS......

All aboard the 'Scrap the Reds' Bus... ding ding.

They are. But those regulations are mostly in response to dreadful accidents. It's a shame to see the Blades go. They were one, if not `the` best team on the circuit. Sorry Reds but you let the side down last year. Another example of the terminal decline of team GB.

There were far more dreadful accidents in the early post-war years, mind you there were a fair few more displays held on RAF Stations and simultaneously. However, these are far more litigious times. Though I notice the reasons cited particularly revolve around the current economic circumstances. They've been compelled to pull the plug I'm sure, but more and more there seems to be a lack of resolve generally. Given the display effort the RAF made just a handful of years ago to where we are now, a Typhoon, BBMF, Chinook, Free Fall team the Falcons, Tutor? oh and the Red Arrows plus, a single annual service organised event.

FB

Maybe this is more a reflection on the state of 2Excel, rather than the airshow circuit?

Ouch. Sorry to see this happen.

Can’t help but think this is a metaphor for lots of things in society these days.

Sorry to see this. Every time I saw them they were nothing more than utterly impressive.

Sign of the times. Airshows have been in constant decline for a decade in my opinion. RIAT costs something like £70 a ticket these days and I'd recently felt that the resurgence due to the success of the free 'seaside' airshow was starting to wane. I guess its costing the company and can't be justified under some kind of PR budget any longer?

At last year's air show at Clacton I think the RAFs input was a helicopter which flew from right to left a couple of miles out. After a minute, people were speculating that it might have crashed as it didn't return. BBMF was there though. The civvies were tame and I put it down to a couple of years being out of practice. Blades will be missed. I think we are becoming a very risk averse society.

Yes I can see both sides of the reasons, but at Shoreham those killed were outside of the airfield, those attending purchased tickets that state you accept the risk involved in the small print on the tickets, so throwing the display lines further away from the crowd means aircraft are in effect displaying off the field and that is in direct conflict with those that have not purchased a ticket so haven't accepted the risk and are trying to get a cheap day out. Yes I know they have areas they now classify as built up areas that make it nigh on impossible to hold shows at some events, hence the demise of events, we will eventually end up with those over the Sea and the likes of Cosford and RIAT, the rest will go partly due to fuel and insurance costs.
Now I know crashes happen, they do in all walks of life, but airshow wise the only ones I can think of that involved the crowd are few and far between, in fact positively rare in the UK

Ignoring the regulations
 

The reason that Shoreham changed everything was due to the public outcry* regarding multiple deaths. This* was quite in order especially as the airshow/display world was SUPPOSED to be subject to 'reasonable control' to prevent such disasters. However as we all know if the checking rules themselves are not adhered to then issues WILL OCCUR. Notwithstanding that a dreadful error/errors was the major factor, the whole system was found 'wanting' yet the system itself is still in denial mainly because the system investigated itself. There were several missed opportunities to prevent the unfolding tragedy which shows that all the rules in the world only work if the 'system' is sound and 'self checks'. Ultimately Airshow flying is down to those who perform, and there is a cogent responsibility that goes with the task of being involved.

In recent years I haven't been able to see past the fact that some of the Blades members held leadership and supervisory positions in the Reds as that team delivered us two avoidable deaths, an avoidable midair collision, an affair between two married team members, and (as we now know) a sordid social culture that carried on in the years that followed, despite the heavy scrutiny to which the team was supposedly subjected at the time, and which has now brought the team to its knees. I would sooner they had disappeared gracefully from the air display scene. Accordingly I can't say I feel a great deal of sadness at news of their "redeployment" within 2Excel. Sorry.