May I suggest that it is not only the charges it is also many other factors that will now change the face of UK airshows. Flying Display Directors shall now basically have to prove that an airshow is 100% safe before it can be deemed to proceed. Take for example Old Sarum last year. There were about 1500 people on the fort and a lesser number in the adjacent farmers field. Now the FDD will have to take measures to ensure that they are all ‘safe’ for any prospect of accident or injury. Same applies to all those on roadways and railways that abut display airfields. I am guessing that all the local authorities and their H & S will have a significant input to the FDD’s life now making it much more difficult to just get all his/her ducks lined up. Not only will the CAA fees rise, then there will be insurance cost rises etc. The root cause of the current rush to bathe everyone in cotton wool and create just another lobe to the Nanny State is the elephant in the room that no-one wishes to comment on. Airshows are an easy target for MPs, local authorities and the like to have a crack at under the banner of safety puffing out their chests on behalf of their constituents…… ” dreadful, horrible, terrible, we must do something about this…..” Where was the same political outrage at the British Airways B777 ‘glider’ ? Just tell me how there is a nexus between airshow charges and safety? Its easy to hide behind the banner of safety while at the same time trying to protect your own backside and the leather seat it sits in. Certainly there should be an investigation into the cause of the Shoreham incident and from that recommendations as to how improvements can be made but lets put a little bit of sober reality into this and not just the knee jerk that was expected and thusfar seems to have happened
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