The end of the UK airshow?

[Adam Aglionby]

CAA are generally pretty good but mebbe a bit more thought required:

[alan_m]

The fee to the CAA looks like an insignificant cost when compared to the figure my local council and police said it would cost them to just provide the rest of the public infrastructure for the air show they cancelled. No potential commercial beneficiaries of the show were willing to provide any meaningful sponsorship.

[Adam Aglionby]

Think it depends if reckon on second biggest spectator draw after football is a cost or a benefit.

Scottish Air Show returned after break of 22 years , 2014 about 60,000, last year about 120,000 people, roads were smooth thanjs to great organisation by private traffic contractors, Ayr, faded seaside resort, gets a large late season boost.

[alan_m]

The cost of providing all that smooth traffic flow, crowd safety, litter collection etc. was far in excess of the proposed CAA fees. If the CAA fees alone will be the demise of an air-show then perhaps the organisers were cutting corners with regards safety in the first place.

I suspect the demise of many future air shows may be due to the armed services not providing aircraft and pilots for public display purposes. The red arrows are around £100k per UK show.

[A.Lee]

From the linked report, they say charges will go from £2000 to £14000. £2000 seems ridiculously cheap for an event that has 25 planes attending

- it then further goes on to say that in the late 1990's, Finningley Air Show made a profit in excess of £250k - that is the amount they paid to a chairty, I would presume they would keep a large sum in their bank account too for future planning, so saying they cannot afford it just does not seem true.

Add in the people who burnt to death because of the Shoreham crash, and it seems quite clear to me that Air Shows should be regulated better, so £14k to allow a better regime, for a 25 plane event, does not seem too bad at all.

[Nightjar]

On 07/02/2016 08:13, A.Lee wrote: ...

Better regulation wouldn't have stopped the Shoreham crash. The pilot almost certainly entered the manoeuvre lower than the existing regulations required and the line he was supposed to be on was over open fields, not the A27.

[Adam Aglionby]

last year about 120,000 people, roads were smooth thanjs to great organisa tion by private traffic contractors, Ayr, faded seaside resort, gets a larg e late season boost.

Would think so, 2014 traffic around town became slightly clogged, 2015 was faster flowing than an average Saturday.Low Green, main crowd arena, was i mmaculate 3 hours after close of play.

Scottish Air Show really is an example of how it can be done right to every one`s benefit. Have no idea how it is funded, as the main display is free.

Fair point.

Very few of the air displays are from Armed Forces, Red Arrows and Typhoon standing on its tail are and the Forces always have a substantial recruitme nt presence at these things, but most display aircraft are supplied by priv ate organisations of one sort or another.

[Adam Aglionby]

Think the point that no member of the public had been killed prior to Shore ham at a UK air show since 1952 shows that UK air show`s are already very s uccesfully regulated and that the CAA does an excellent job in public hands ....

The concern is that this is just increased cost and has nothing to do with safety.

Cynical might suspect that the CAA is getting groomed for sell off.

[Peter Parry]

As it is now nothing other than the emasculated poodle of the European Aviation Safety Agency would anyone want it? (The EASA having been described by the European Court of Auditors as having "Inadequately managed conflict of interest situations " and needing "gifts and invitations policies ")

[no_spam]

I don't want to start another opinionated debate like the one you will probably be aware of on another (aviation) forum BUT your incorrect statement cannot be left unchallenged. There is absolutely no evidence that the Hunter pilot "entered the manoeuvre lower than the existing regulations required", nor that "the line he was supposed to be on was over open fields, not the A27".

The flypast appears to have been flown at or above the approved base height. After the flypast the aircraft pulled-up into the accident manoeuvre and would have been well above the approved base for the entry to that manoeuvre by the time the pitch or bank attitudes became "aerobatic".

AFAIAA the sequence card has not been published and, even if it had, this would show the manoeuvre sequence and not necessarily the alignments, which would have been dynamic to take account of the situation. I believe the avoid areas for the display site did not include the A27.

The accident may have been the result of pilot error, incapacitation, mechanical failure, ... or many other things. All that is publicly known at the moment is that the aircraft did not complete the intended manoeuvre and that a number of people were tragically killed and injured in the resulting accident.

Those in the industry will recognise your statements of fact as being wrong, but those without background knowledge may assume that you know what you're talking about and be misled. Please do not make misleading statements that are not based on fact.

My credentials: I am not a display pilot but am an experienced aerobatic instructor, a CAA examiner, and have some experience of the Hunter.

[The Natural Philosopher]

See .sig. vvvvvvvvv

[ARW]

After the Vulcan stopped flying then there is no need for them:-)

[Nightjar]

The minimum height for manoeuvres was 500 feet and the AAIB report states that he pitched up into it at 200 feet. Several well qualified eye witnesses also stated that they thought he had been too low.

Accepted. That was based upon early reports, which showed he should have been north of and parallel to the road. The AAIB report shows that the display line would have taken him across the A27.

[Nightjar]

I am surprised they charge so little at present.

[no_spam]

How long do you think it takes an aircraft like a Hunter to climb from

200ft to 500ft when it is at loop entry speed (400+kt IIRC)? How much do you think it would have pitched in that time? The answers are and . There are no formal definitions of aerobatic attitudes in the UK, but the FAA use 30 and 60 degrees so these are often adopted for discussion purposes. It is highly unlikely that the pitch attitude would have reached 30 degrees in 300ft when pulling sensibly at 400+kt ... it feels like this should be easily calculable if we assume 4 or 5g, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

For the avoidance of doubt: I don't have any involvement or special interest in this topic, I just dislike the presentation of opinion as fact. I also don't understand why armchair experts feel the need to make statements and guesses about things they know little about and without access to the facts. Let's just wait for the investigation and for the facts to be published. Meanwhile, I think it's a good idea to sign the petition that's mentioned at the top of the thread. Happy Landings!

[DerbyBorn]

"Nightjar .me.uk"> wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Why would a seaside town have an airshow over a road and fields?

[The Natural Philosopher]

+100

Its OK to speculate, as long as it is not held to be anything but speculation.

AS with many other weird air crashes, it will take a long time for the AAIB (is it that these days) to come up with a report, and often that itself will be inconclusive.

Did we ever find out what happened in that helicopter crash in Glasgow?

Oh wiki says the usual 'pilot error'

"The final report into the accident was published on 23 October 2015. It found the main cause of the accident to be mismanagement of the fuel system by the pilot. This resulted in the engines flaming out due to a lack of fuel despite there being 73 kilograms (161 lb) of usable fuel remaining in the main tanks. A failure to follow emergency checklists and land within ten minutes of the first warning of low fuel was a major contributory factor. Seven safety recommendations were made."

[Nightjar]

On 07/02/2016 19:09, no [e-mail] wrote: ...

So? According to the rules for the air show, he should not have been carrying out aerobatics at less than 500 feet. How quickly he manages to climb having started off lower than that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that he ended the manoeuvre at ground level, which he probably wouldn't have if he had started 300 feet higher.

However, my main point was not what caused the crash, but that better regulation would not have prevented the crash. Do you disagree with that?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well unless you say stuff like 'all aerobatics to be performned at 10k altitude in which case who is going to want to pay to see it?

Like motor racing, one pays top see some thrills and near misses, not an orderly procession of machinery at a very safe distance.

>

[Nightjar]

The town of Shoreham doesn't have an airshow. It is Shoreham airport (aka Brighton City Airport) that has the airshow and that is about a kilometre inland.