Although it has been good to see the air-races (albeit very much “editted highlights”) on mainstream terrestial TV here in UK, I suspect the novelty will soon wear off for most of the casual viewers.

Where as they can all perhaps dream of driving an F1 racing car while we sit in traffic quees on their local main road, few of tham can probably identify with the experience of flying in sort of high performance aircraft they see on the airrace programs – the closest experience most viewers will get is sat in the rear end of an airliner. Thus their “identification” with the air-racing experience is probably minimal – expect perhaps via the gaming software advertised at the top of some of these fora pages?

While there may be some (many?) viewers who watch the show from a gladiatorial viewpoint – i.e. hoping for a spectacular “incident”, most must realise that any such disaster would (hopefully!) be edittted out.

Thus, I do not think the show will hold many viewers beyond a couple of years/series before viewers get bored and move on “once you’ve seen one plane fly between a few inflatable pylons, you’ve seen them all, yawn“. At that point RB will pull the sponsership plug.

Unless, of course, they can inject something new into the show/series’ format – and these changes will have to be very obvious to the average viewer, and not fine-tuning tweaks that only the real aviation specialist can spot/understand. Maybe they could sponser the Reno Unlimited Gold race – very different ‘planes and a very different race format, the absolute “b@lls out” aspect of unlimited racing might hold viewers attention for another series or two?

It will be ashame when RB pull the plug, but at least it’s given us something on the TV to look forward to for a change.

Paul F