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Farnborough Air Show public days cancelled

Bob McC said:
Shame about the regs.
The most awe inspiring moment I had was a display at Woodford show when a Vulcan came overhead, bomb bay open then stood on its tail and climbed vertically.
It sounded like the sky was being ripped apart.
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I remember similar as a kid, plus Lightnings etc flying low and really fast over the crowd area. Great fun, but impossible in our US-lawyer style compensation culture.

PS FWIW I do wish people (not you) would stop with Daily Mail ‘elf ‘n’ safety’ rants as it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. This is entirely about mitigating risk of being sued. The very last thing any tax-payer wishes to see is their money wasted on settling legal payouts because a council gave clearance to an event that ended up killing or injuring people. I am beyond astonished that the Shorham event had clearance to fly aerobatics over major roads, that is just crazy, and I bet a lot of our tax revenue has been paid to the families of those killed and injured as a result.
 
On the whole I agree, Tony, but for many of us who have enjoyed the thrill of air shows over the last fifty odd years (maybe more!) there is pretty much nothing to make the effort and expense worth it now.

For example, Duxford. Only three air shows per year now. £30 per ticket, in advance only. Much of the spectator line is taken up by VIP and club marquees. Food is expensive, very long queues, third rate. Between the hangars and the marquees it’s more like a car boot sale. Hideous, and squeezes the spectators walking through the area. And then the display starts... well, some old aircraft fly by about 400 yards away at the closest, slow, high, and repeatedly turning away from the crowd. If you want to take photos of the bottom of a Lancaster, Duxford is a great place for you.

Cack. Absolute cack. And it’ll only get worse.

Lots of people started to visit the museum on the Fridays before air shows to see the aircraft arriving. Guess what? Duxford are starting to introduce restrictions and profiteering for that too.

It’s a great museum, but the air show side makes me sick.
 
I always thought the Friday before the show was a great day for visitors, seeing the arriving aircraft & the practice runs for the upcoming displays. Like a lot of walks of life, big ££££ comes in & ruins it for the average enthusiast.
 
Apologies if I’m straying off topic, but I’ll try to clarify a few things about Duxford.
Yes, I’m a bit passionate about the place & up until recently was a volunteer there, in the airfield control tower, as an assistant to the FISO’s ( which are very basically Air Traffic Controllers for smaller airfields).Admittedly that limits my neutrality.
The airfield is a separate entity to the museum. That is, it is a business occupying land on the Duxford site. It doesn’t receive IWM funding ( or if it does, it’s a party sum) & financially has to stand on its own two feet.
The amount of planning, decisions & permissions required to grant a major air show is truly mind-boggling & yet the profits from such shows are pretty small. Certainly not a licence to print money.
Putting on shows such as Duxford, a large majority of the visiting public expect all the commercial stalls, food outlets etc. You simply can’t put on a major air show & expect everyone to Self cater, nor would many kids go home without souvenirs. Go to a rugby game at Twickenham, footy at Wembley, music festival etc. It’s what the ( vast majority) of the public demand.
The Flying Legends airshow at Duxford is an outside company who basically take over the airfield for the weekend. That show has nothing to do directly with the IWM or indeed the airfield itself.
I’m not saying they get everything right & indeed, some of the commercial decisions are taken despite severe reticence by the front line staff.
I do see the future of air shows at risk. Rising costs, a decreasing fleet of airworthy historical aircraft, even the mighty Red Arrows might come up against airworthiness issues in the near future. Farnborough may merely be the first of many to throw the towel in.
 
Probably should have qualified the “first” with “recently.”
I grew up being taken to shows at Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Greenham Common & such like. Great memories, long gone.
 
Woodford airs how would never get permission now.
The AVRO facility was surrounded by housing estates and main roads.

In fact since it shut down it is itself now a housing estate!
 
Been going top Fairford for about 25 years or more, before that it was Finningley.

It makes you laugh, the campsites with hundreds, if not thousands of caravans and tents are far more dangerous than being on the base as a paying punter. All the best viewing sites at Fairford are outside the base, I don't think we've paid to go in since about 1998.
 
Tony L said:
This is entirely about mitigating risk of being sued. The very last thing any tax-payer wishes to see is their money wasted on settling legal payouts because a council gave clearance to an event that ended up killing or injuring people. I am beyond astonished that the Shorham event had clearance to fly aerobatics over major roads, that is just crazy, and I bet a lot of our tax revenue has been paid to the families of those killed and injured as a result.
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You perhaps don't realise just how much ground a fast jet will cover during a manoeuvre. In the UK, it would be virtually impossible for a FJ display not to go over major infrastructure such as roads or built up areas. That is one reason why the manoeuvres have minimum entry altitudes and speeds, so that the risk is minimised, and the pilot has options if something goes wrong part way through. At Shoreham, the obvious place to recover to in the event of a major problem would be the sea. That this pilot entered an aerobatic manoeuvre way too low suggests either a cavalier attitude, or some sort of horrendous altimetry cock up.
 
Too low, too slow, didn’t change anything until too late.
Fast jets display at Duxford, and the only added danger on the ground is the M11 off the eastern end of the runway. They’ve had some fortunate outcomes over the years, and reheat aircraft aren’t permitted to take off from there.
 
This is the closest to a bad crash I have seen (aside from an Italian G-222 nose wheel collapse on landing causing more of a brown pants moment than full on incident)

2005 Fairford Friday practice day, similar to the Shoreham accident, pilot came out of a loop too close to ground due to plane issues, picture doesn't look like much because he could have just taken off but you can see he was full throttle and I would imagine seconds from ejecting. When it happened live we had the scanner on and he was cool as a cucumber, it didn't half kick up some crap as it was over the display line at the side of the air strip.

Not my pic, stolen from internet

 
Apologies for divering from the main topic, but people contributing here may find it of interest (or alarm!) to know about a R4 programme. This is the 'File on 4' that will be repeated at 5 o'clock today. Its on the iplayer already as it was initially broadcast on Tuesday. Its topic is the epic level of c0ckup in training pilots for the RAF. Even by the low standards of recent governments I was quite shocked by the sheer level of the problems reported!
 
All the UK armed forces are in a complete mess.
I’m 55, left the RAF in 1990, and believe it or not I can rejoin! And within a year I could well be a rank above the one I left with.

I work quite closely with the army, and retention used to be the main problem. Now, the contracted out recruitment is falling flat on its face so there’s nobody to replace the hoards leaving.

I could say more, but I’d feel more than a little uncomfortable.
 
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Jim Audiomisc said:
Apologies for divering from the main topic, but people contributing here may find it of interest (or alarm!) to know about a R4 programme. This is the 'File on 4' that will be repeated at 5 o'clock today. Its on the iplayer already as it was initially broadcast on Tuesday. Its topic is the epic level of c0ckup in training pilots for the RAF. Even by the low standards of recent governments I was quite shocked by the sheer level of the problems reported!
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I listened to that whilst having a bath.

It was unbelievable!

What an utter cock up.

Trying to justify running empty training courses took the biscuit.
 
One of the most memorable air displays was at the Goodwood festival of Speed some 20 years ago. It was a much smaller event back then and I was with some friends during the evening and witnessed what I think must have been an impromptu Spitfire display. The aircraft literally flew between the trees and I have no idea of the height (or lack of) but it was the most thrilling setting to see the plane and a clearly exuberant pilot. Beautiful evening.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Apologies for divering from the main topic, but people contributing here may find it of interest (or alarm!) to know about a R4 programme. This is the 'File on 4' that will be repeated at 5 o'clock today. Its on the iplayer already as it was initially broadcast on Tuesday. Its topic is the epic level of c0ckup in training pilots for the RAF. Even by the low standards of recent governments I was quite shocked by the sheer level of the problems reported!
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I heard some of that programme - if you still think that contracting out of these services is a good thing after listening to it I`d be surprised - catch it on iplayer or BBC sound or whatever they call it now.
 
FWIW I've always thought 'contracting out', etc, were delusional mistakes. But it puts money into the pockets of people who donate to the relevant politicians, and provides a 'revolving door' for some top Civil Servants, so goes on, regardless!

You can see examples of much the same - from the NHS, to rail, to British waterways and the Royal Mail. (Ask sub-post-office owners who've been shafted and even sent to *prison* wrongly as a result!) But some examples are really more draw-dropping than others!
 
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