We sometimes forget just how many air show accidents we had in the UK up until the 1990s. A great deal of the credit for the improved safety record for recent air displays in the UK has to go to the man who made the first posting on this thread.
Take a bow ‘Skybolt’. It was his work at the CAA and before that, the efforts of the Historic Aircraft Association, which started the current system of display authorisation and self-policing by fellow air display pilots.
That is now enshrined in UK, in the Display Authorisation system where pilots are required to be assessed by display evaluators, experienced pilots themselves for both the type of display and aircraft used. They then recommend to the CAA whether a DA is issued.
There are also of course a full raft of regulations with which any air show organiser has to comply, on display lines, safety areas, distance from crowd etc. Accidents and and do happen, but they have for the past decade fulfilled their aims of keeping the crowd safe.
There is a fascinating ‘inside story’ on the early days of the Display Organisation procedure, written by former Farnborough test pilot Darryl Stinton, on the HAA website. http://www.haa-uk.aero/history.php
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