Reds exit display
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Reds exit display
Half way through their display at the RAF Wyton families day today the Reds had to stop their display because two gliders were infringing their TRA.
Ther are a number of points worth making about this:
Firstly the commentator spent ten minutes berating these amataur GA pilots who dare to populate the skies above our hallowed land. Sorry but such arrogance is just noy conducive to a sensible working relationship. Some of us have to pay for our aviation experiences and dont have the tax payer funding us.
Now to the rant about the glider pilots concerned. We all forget to check the Notams every now and again. There is little excuse for not knowing what is going on locally and I am assuming that these gliders were local. What is worse is that they appeared to take little heed of the Reds trying to alet them to their presence by flying in the vicinty streaming smoke. Pretty unfortunate that the CAA head of SRG (or whatever it is called these days) was at Wyton. You can be sure he is using every course of acdtion he can to track them down and make an example of them.
Big thimbs up to the Reds themselves however. When Dicky P spotted the interlopers he didnt head off to his next location in a huff but did all he could to clear the TRA in order to resume. Maybe for a civialian event he might not have been so accomodating but he had the nine hawks holding and aiming to be as conspicous as possible in order to try and resume. Top marks Red one.
Otherwise great day - really enjoyable and the BBMF Lanc put ona slightly more sprited show than is normally the case. In my diary for next year.l
Ther are a number of points worth making about this:
Firstly the commentator spent ten minutes berating these amataur GA pilots who dare to populate the skies above our hallowed land. Sorry but such arrogance is just noy conducive to a sensible working relationship. Some of us have to pay for our aviation experiences and dont have the tax payer funding us.
Now to the rant about the glider pilots concerned. We all forget to check the Notams every now and again. There is little excuse for not knowing what is going on locally and I am assuming that these gliders were local. What is worse is that they appeared to take little heed of the Reds trying to alet them to their presence by flying in the vicinty streaming smoke. Pretty unfortunate that the CAA head of SRG (or whatever it is called these days) was at Wyton. You can be sure he is using every course of acdtion he can to track them down and make an example of them.
Big thimbs up to the Reds themselves however. When Dicky P spotted the interlopers he didnt head off to his next location in a huff but did all he could to clear the TRA in order to resume. Maybe for a civialian event he might not have been so accomodating but he had the nine hawks holding and aiming to be as conspicous as possible in order to try and resume. Top marks Red one.
Otherwise great day - really enjoyable and the BBMF Lanc put ona slightly more sprited show than is normally the case. In my diary for next year.l
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Huge and very widely known problems with the notam website ,its frequently down at present and of course is nowadays the only practical method of obtaining complete notam information .So the pilots will have an excellent defence,perhaps the commentator should be sure of his facts and the head of SRG spend more time at the office sorting out the mess and chaos the CAA finds itself in nowadays.Not sure this crumbling ruin of a country that Blair has created can really afford extravagences as the Red Arrows (magnificent though they are)any more.
Unforgiveable in my opinion - I hope the CAA through the book at them.
Whilst I agree that the NOTAM website leaves much to be desired (please can we scrap it and go back to the old system?) what about the 0500 FreePhone Number which gives details of TRAs etc.
I will put my hand up and plead guilty to occasionally not doing a good job at checking NOTAMs prior to flight but I NEVER go flying (even locally) without checking out the 0500 number - after all it's FREE!!
Whilst I agree that the NOTAM website leaves much to be desired (please can we scrap it and go back to the old system?) what about the 0500 FreePhone Number which gives details of TRAs etc.
I will put my hand up and plead guilty to occasionally not doing a good job at checking NOTAMs prior to flight but I NEVER go flying (even locally) without checking out the 0500 number - after all it's FREE!!
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i agree with firefly, maybe if the CAA made an example of these so called pilots who have total disregard to anyone except themselves, pull there licence's for 6 months or make them re-train as there inital training seems to have been forgotten
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But glider pilots don't have CAA licences......
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I think you find the last military glider to fly from Upwood left some time ago - if there ever was a gliding school there in the first place. Upwood is now the home to a civilian club who (unfortunatly) where at Wyton trying to promote the sport of gliding
I think you find the last military glider to fly from Upwood left some time ago - if there ever was a gliding school there in the first place. Upwood is now the home to a civilian club who (unfortunatly) where at Wyton trying to promote the sport of gliding
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Originally Posted by Final 3 Greens
Did anyone try to call the gliders on 130.4 to alert them?
Anyway, glider pilots are much better stick and rudder men than GA pilots and with their superior lookout skills, I am sure that they could have easily steered around the sparrows.
Anyway, glider pilots are much better stick and rudder men than GA pilots and with their superior lookout skills, I am sure that they could have easily steered around the sparrows.
But steam MUST give way to sail.
Many years ago, prior to the establishment of TRA's for the Red Arrows, they were scheduled for a display at RAF Odiham. On the same day (and all week in fact), there was a major gliding competition in progress at Lasham. For those who are unaware, Lasham is about 4nm from Odiham.
The Reds started their display, but broke off after about 10 minutes and departed complaining about a glider and tug combination which kept getting in their way! (Lasham were carrying out their 'massed launch' procedure at the time, using about 20 tugs to get 100 odd sailplanes airborne in as short a time as possible)
It would seem that, although the Lasham competiton organisers were aware of the Red Arrows display, the Reds for whatever reason had either failed to brief about the gliding, or had blandly assumed the gliders would keep clear of them!
The Reds started their display, but broke off after about 10 minutes and departed complaining about a glider and tug combination which kept getting in their way! (Lasham were carrying out their 'massed launch' procedure at the time, using about 20 tugs to get 100 odd sailplanes airborne in as short a time as possible)
It would seem that, although the Lasham competiton organisers were aware of the Red Arrows display, the Reds for whatever reason had either failed to brief about the gliding, or had blandly assumed the gliders would keep clear of them!
Why do it if it's not fun?
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Sorry guys, yes the NOTAM website can be a pain, but there is NO excuse for any aviator to blunder into a Reds TRA
I'm thinking about ChrisN's recent experiences of the AIS briefing service (here and here), whereby he e-mailed them for a briefing, and they responded to his query - but with a radius 1/4 of the size he asked for. He only became aware of this because the web-based query engine started working shortly afterwards, and he noticed NOTAMs missing from the AIS reply to his query.
Had the query engine not started working, or had he not decided to have checked it anyway (which I think would have been quite reasonable since he had already obtained a briefing from AIS), he most likely would never have known about the missing NOTAMs. If this meant that something relevant - a Reds display or anything else - had been missing, I think the presenting the e-mail from AIS would probably have been reasonable mitigation of busting the display or whatever other restricted area had been missed?
I'm not suggesting this was what happened in this case - I have no knowledge of the incident nor of what briefing methods the glider pilots used. But I do think it's about time that the CAA realised that the current system is difficult to use, there is not sufficient training given, and that (aside from any recent problems which are making it worse than normal) this is creating dangerous situations where pilots do not know how to get a NOTAM briefing which contains all of the information they need. The half-hearted instructions given at CAA safety evenings (which are poorly attended, and in the main attended by the kind of pilot who probably does know how to brief himself properly) do not get the instructions conveyed to most pilots, and are no substitute for a properly designed, intuitive system which does not need a 20-page manual to be able to use properly.
Sorry for the rant - I'm in a bad mood generally today! - but although I agree that there is no excuse for a pilot not attempting to brief himself properly, it's about time everyone realised it's a two-way street, and we need a system which makes such briefings easier and more reliable.
FFF
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The Reds started their display, but broke off after about 10 minutes and departed complaining about a glider and tug combination which kept getting in their way! (Lasham were carrying out their 'massed launch' procedure at the time, using about 20 tugs to get 100 odd sailplanes airborne in as short a time as possible)
It would seem that, although the Lasham competiton organisers were aware of the Red Arrows display, the Reds for whatever reason had either failed to brief about the gliding, or had blandly assumed the gliders would keep clear of them!
It would seem that, although the Lasham competiton organisers were aware of the Red Arrows display, the Reds for whatever reason had either failed to brief about the gliding, or had blandly assumed the gliders would keep clear of them!
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Well put FFF.I regularly help friends off on flying weekends and unable to access the web on their travels.Last year I did a narrow route search for a former colleague who was going to the Isle of Man.I just happened to know the Red Arrows were performing there.Narrow route brief just didn,t bring it up despite repeated attempts to provoke it into doing so and I am very practised at using it and the systems foibles.I am amazed the CAA manage to get any prosecutions with the present system I know how I would conduct a defence to any infringement!!.The current notam system is not up to the job,it is the product of an attempt to economise on the cost of running a notam system .The result is a very flawed system that has not properly replaced the system that went before it.
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Reds
As I understand it everything that could be done was by the guys at Wyton trying to track down the TRA intruders. All relevant frequencies were used, many phone calls made, etc.
I didnt see Mr CAA but understodd that he was 'on a roll' trying to track down the culprits - and he did check the Notams before flying in to Wyton!. If this was a local gliding club I am sure the club would have been advised of the TRA and if responsible would have placed the notification on the notice board to draw it to the attention of pilots flying locally.
I didnt see Mr CAA but understodd that he was 'on a roll' trying to track down the culprits - and he did check the Notams before flying in to Wyton!. If this was a local gliding club I am sure the club would have been advised of the TRA and if responsible would have placed the notification on the notice board to draw it to the attention of pilots flying locally.