Just noticed this thread. I watched the episode in question on iplayer just the other day after hearing about the controversy. I can see nothing wrong with what Clarkson said, clearly just a normal light hearted comment from Clarkson. It ain’t his first that’s for sure.

I think political correctness has gone too far generally. I seem to recall that a few years back there was some debate about a school called St Thomas’ Roman Catholic school in an area where there were many Muslim immigrants. The council decided that the name of the school must be changed in order to not upset the local Muslim community. There were many complaints from parents and teachers and local residents. However one particular letter of complaint stood out the most. It was from the local Islamic Community group who reported that none of their members found the name of the school offensive in any way but they did see the council’s action as offensive in that it was giving the local Muslim community a bad name over something that was not true

Well done! A truly smashing photo it is too. I hope it is not the last photo you get accepted.

Pete Truman:

First of all you need to get your Scottish geography right. Leuchars is not by any stretch of the imagination the “far north of Scotland”. Leuchars is located in the Kingdom of Fife which if you knew anything about Scottish geography is in what they call the “Central Belt” of Scotland. This Central Belt happens to be the most populated area in all of Scotland with Dundee only 20 mins away, Edinburgh (the capital) just over an hour away and Glasgow about 2 hours so or so away by car.
Secondly the BoB might have been about the defence of the precious White Cliffs of Dover by the City of Edinburgh Squadron fought very hard to keep the German bombers away from the invaluable port of Rosyth in Fife. They did such a good job that not only the first German bomber to be shot down over Britain was claimed by them over Fife but the Firth of Forth was nicknamed “Suicide Alley” by the German Luftwaffe. I think they are due some recognition.
Quite frankly Leuchars can reschedule their airshow to earlier on in the year, September is the most stupid time to have an airshow in Scotland, the weather in 2005, 2006 and 2008 were really against the organisers (no show in 2007 due to runway resurfacing). I would be all for a July airshow as this would be slightly better for the Scottish climate

Regards

AJ

I take your point but I would have thought that the pilot’s judgement that a display was possible would have over ruled any CAA regulations. After all i don’t think that TVOC would want to take any risks with XH558. Another complaint from the pilot after the show was that a Spitfire was let up after XH558 had vacated. What are the chances that the Spit was operating IFR (after all the airfield was operating IFR at the time)

doesnt look like im going now, due to my friend not having enough fuel, he was travelling from manchester and calling for me on the way, unfortunatly it isnt pay day for him yet:(

You really did not not miss the world’s best airshow. The weather was very much against the organisers, cloud base of 500 ft rising to 1000 ft later on and visibility extremely poor throughout the day. Many of the displays were cancelled, the Role Demo was scaled down considerably and the Vulcan could not fly. Instead it did 2 fast taxis up the runway and raised the nosegear. The pilot of the Vulcan David somebody (not good with names) did then go and meet the crowd after taxiing back to its parking position. He said that the crew were able and capable of putting on a display for the crowd but due to stringent CAA regulations they were not able to. Lets flame the CAA :diablo: :dev2:

A lot of very good photos there, the first shot looks like St Paul!! Lots of variety as well.

Some very good shots, I always like to see the airline colour schemes from years ago. The A320 makes it feel very modern though, I just can’t think of the A320 as a plane that was around in the 80s!!! Even now it seems so modern

R.I.P all those who lost their lives in this tragic accident. I would think Spanair might think about following Iberia into the Airbus only club. Makes sense to me. The poor Mad Dogs are getting past their best if you ask me.