Air Displays – Cost versus Duration?

You are, . Where do you think all the profits go? :p

I wouldn’t know how much of the maintenance and transit costs are borne by the owner. I wanted to make the point that Joe Public does not appreciate the cost incurred in putting on an airshow: for what you get, an airshow such as Shoreham is very good value for money. To date over £1 000 000 has been donated by the organisers to the RAF Benevolrent Fund:)

I was chatting to the Harrier Display pilot at Shoreham Airshow and he disclosed that the approved Harrier display consumed 1.3 tons of fuel. That’s a lot of money whoever is paying for it

You are, of course, along with every other punter who pays entry fee, buys a programme or eats a hotdog from the catering vans. Where do you think all the profits go? :p

Display flying costs

Here Here for Proctors post above, among with the other good points of you good folks out there.

Im involved with classic vintage Vietnam helicopters and the main cost is always going to be the positioning to and from the event.

Jersey invited us to attend a couple of years ago and you can imagine the flying time from Preston to Jersey and back at 120kts! Same goes for most of you prop/rotor driven things out there.

Dont ever forget, if you want civi owned ‘stuff’ to attend, someone has to pay the costs…. be it the owner through his/her generosity or the public paying to attend the event, or a mixture of both of the above!

We all love Airshows and they are ( i believe) the 3rd ranking public attended event in the UK next to Footie and Rugby.

Airshows are here to stay but it seems in an ever reducting number.

enough blah … Fly Safe and ENJOY

I was chatting to the Harrier Display pilot at Shoreham Airshow and he disclosed that the approved Harrier display consumed 1.3 tons of fuel. That’s a lot of money whoever is paying for it

Yes, but what a show it puts on for it!

‘Course, nothing compared to the growl of the big piston-engined blighters, but still…

[QUOTE=JDK;1423532

I don’t know if the CAA’s display DA requirements are available online. However the data therin is a good example of incident-driven safe-practice.

HTH.[/QUOTE]

Its all in CAP 403 which is available as a PDF from the CAA Safety Regulations web site.

Just wondering if this statement is true? It is the second part I am querying.

Fair thing to do. Any analysis of airshow accidents will show a significant number featured a deviation from the act’s routine.

I didn’t and won’t outline examples here because those that need to know can find the data themselves (starting with the AAIB reports online for the UK) and any specifics tend to drag a thread into fault-finding with individual cases, rather than the big pic statistics.

To give a general contextualisation, a display routine will have safety factors built in, and ‘aborts’ for problems available – a ‘get out safely’ plan. Obviously as soon as the original plan is left, all those other sub-plans are lost as well. Much display flying relies on energy management, and recalculating that as you go is possible, but a very bad idea as the ‘data check’ is reality, not a second opinion – also effort and concentration in that new energy plan is effort and concentration not available to continue to fly and avoid other problems.

I don’t know if the CAA’s display DA requirements are available online. However the data therin is a good example of incident-driven safe-practice.

HTH.

Just wondering if this statement is true? It is the second part I am querying.

Planemike

We lost good friend Alan Ness of CWH and their first Fairey Firefly.

An unscheduled low level roll along the waterfront at Toronto at the CNE show of c1977.

Mark

Just wondering if this statement is true?

Planemike

Yes it is absolutely true, a well rehearsed and practiced routine is the safest way to display. At the start of each season we practice the display routine until we are happy that it all works and only then do we display, there may be minor variations to allow for local conditions, ie wind, terrain etc but the display remains essentially the same. An 8 minute display is standard with the Canberra, with it’s unpowered controls it is a very heavy aircraft to haul around for any length of time especially when it is hot.
To address the cost issue, an average 8 minute display consumes 1800-2000Lbs of Jet A1/Avtur which is about 1017 litres @ 60p / litre plus 500Lbs for taxi and take off, 282 Litres @ 60p/litre. that makes 1299litres or £779 worth. If you take an average transit time of 1 hour each way that’s 2 hours at 4000Lbs per hour, 2260 litres each way 4520 Litres @ 60p/litre that’s £2712 for the transit plus 500Lbs take off and taxi then factor in any hold for display slot slippage and it all starts to add up. An average display will consume about £4000 worth of fuel depending on transit distance and the price of fuel, which varies considerably. All this cost does not even take other consumables into consideration, starter cartridges, a minimum of 2 for each flight, oil, oxygen, nitrogen, hydraulic fluid and insurance costs.

One of the modern no-nos is to deviate from that routine for any reason – we’ve lost too many pilots as a result of ad-libbing. …

Just wondering if this statement is true? It is the second part I am querying.

Planemike

I think we have to give to the Americans for the highest cost/display/transit ratio.

About six or seven years ago I was invited to a display at RAF Wyton. Highlight of the display was to be a B.2 Stealth Bomber. It would be flying in from the USA…and it did. It made one pass at about 5000 ft flanked be a couple of F.15’s (or similar) and flew back to the US.

There was a subtleness there…that I did not realise at the time. 🙂

Mark

Don’t forget that display pilots fly a planned display routine. One of the modern no-nos is to deviate from that routine for any reason – we’ve lost too many pilots as a result of ad-libbing. So most pilots and teams develop a set display at the start of the season and that’s what they ‘do’. Sometimes they have planned variations on a theme, and of course venues can require deviation, but limiting the other variables is a safety concern.

Working to that routine is simply a lot safer – currency, familiarity, and immediate awareness of problems due to notable deviation from the norm.

So the display worked out is of the type and duration that’s going to sell to the most venues…

for the HARVARD we estimate about £500 per hour on the aircaft, we can deduct the value of fuel uplifted at the event, that would be for about 10 mins of display, at display power we use about 48 gall per hour, 20 gal per in cruise and about 30 gal per in climb to display start position.

I’m sure i heard the late great Stefan Karwowski (spelling?) say when talking about displaying the Bearcat that at display power it burns about 80 gallons an hour (or equivalent). Thats just over 1.3 gallons per minute.. does that sound right.?

According to the current edition of Flypast the Sea Vixen burns about £45 of fuel per minute so as was said earlier eye watering proportions.

Again were about 8-12 mins (off the top of my head) and manage to get a pass a minute.

As for fuel i did hear the vampire burns £12 a min however im not sure on this so dont shoot me down

cheers

The people I work with base charges on transit time to an event. Once there, you can have a 10 minute display or a flypast – the price doesn’t change.

I don’t know how other people do it.

fuel burn during the display is the cheapest part.

I have done a number of displays at air shows and the issues that are needed to consider are:

* Ferry time there and back; – say 45 minutes each way (90 minutes total)
* Transit/holding time waiting clearance to do display run; and – say 20 minutes
* actual display time. – say 10 minutes

It is common to hold for 15 to 20 minutes (or longer if an airshow is running late)

Its not just a simple time-over-target equasion. So to simply increase the display time doesn’t generate a similar increase in costs.

In the case above total flying time is 120 minutes for a 10 minute display.

cheers

CD,
I do not have a wealth of knowledge regarding the specific aircraft types you mention, but based on my limited knowledge (Cap 10 and YAK 55) in a piston aircraft you can more or less double the fuel useage during a display. The Cap burns about 30-35 liters an hour during cruise but will easily swallow 60 liters an hour during a display. The YAK will burn 50-60 liters an hours during cruise, but will easily get through 120 liters an hour during a display.

With early jets, the penalty is even more. Jets are really happy high up, where the fuel consumption goes down. Low down, they will eat fuel at eye watering rate. During a display the fuel flow will be a LOT LOT more than during cruise, more so than with the pistons.

A commercial solo display from one of the aircraft I am involved with (Spitfire, P-51 etc) is normally 8 minutes duration.

Eight minutes…..just goes to show how much I’ve been enjoying them! 😀

My question was prompted because most aircraft transit-display-transit, even if they land, and many transit considerable distances so the display fuel, I’d assumed, wouldn’t be much in comparison to the transit fuel.

CD, which airshows are you basing this on? None that I’ve been to.

As I said I’ve never timed a display…..they just seemed short. 😮

At Cosford for example, I wondered about the transit-versus-display fuel usage for the F-86A and, particularly, the Vulcan.