Nice photo’s looks like you had a great day.

I have been trying to think what better songs suits whats happening at the moment.
Either REM “Its the end of the world as we know it” Or Tom Petty “Free Fallin”.

But seriously the events that are occuring now were always going to happen really, This has all come from greed and dodgy dealing, I have no sympathy for the people at the top who incidently will all be sitting on lovely nest eggs anyway.
But i feel for the people that the ripples of this are effecting the people like Texantomcat who have lost their jobs through no fault of there own,the small firms going to the wall and the people losing there homes.

The biggest worry is that i can honestly see this getting far worse and these bailout plans from Governments are not going to change much as there is no faith in the market.

Of course there will be growth industries at this time including Psychiatrists,Criminals,Funeral directors,etc, So i guess for some people this recession could be a good thing, Just not for the rest of us.

Having seen 5 fatal accident at airshows i admit i have wanted to see the footage on TV to try and make sense of what i witnessed, But i personally feel that the You tube gore fest of such things is sickening. Sadly death and disaster sell, Thats why we got sites like that about and 24 hour news channels.

I was at Duxford and Biggin Hill respectively when the P-38 and P-63 accidents occured and i can tell you now, You don’t need reminding of such things. But i would point anyone to the fact you can avoid these images on you tube and anywhere else by either not searching for them or not watching them when they appear after a search.

I Hope all is going well I’m not on here much lately.
All the best Steve.

I have had “Issues” with the remaining members of Queen carrying on since Freddie died and i still wish they would drop the Queen name.

Having said that i bought the Queen+Paul Rodgers “the cosmos rocks” and i have to say i really like it, It does not for the most part sound like Queen and really thats not a bad thing in my view, It is a good album that shows the talents of the whole band, and is well worth a listen, A good mix of rock and some more bluesy numbers.
Stand out tracks in my view are
1)Cosmos rockin’
2)Time to shine
3)Call me
4)Voodoo
5)We believe

So i would say give it a go Paul Rodgers is a very good front man and along with the 2 remaining members of Queen they create a good sound, Freddie is gone and won’t be replaced but Paul is a class act too.

Sat and Sun 2nd – 3rd June 2001 at Biggin Hill. Probably the worst weekend ever for fatal show crashes.

Sat 2nd a Vampire crashes after flying through the jet wash of the Sea Vixen, Foxy Lady causing the aircraft to crash out of control in a nearby field.
read full story here:-
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources/dft_avsafety_pdf_507791.pdf

Sun 3rd the King Cobra crashes after failing to pull out of a spin.

Two crashes at the same event on both days. Something that has never happened before and hope never happens again.

I have been unfortunate to have witnessed 5 fatal accidents aircraft accidents at Airshows and from memory i think 2 parachute incidents, But i must stress this does not reflect in anyway on UK airshows or safety in general, I personally feel we have a very good record in the uk.
The aircraft accidents i witnessed are,
1)P38 at Duxford july 1996
2)Vampire Biggin hill 2001
3)p63 King Cobra Biggin 2001
4)Firefly Duxford July 2003
5)Hurricane Shoreham september 2007

2001 at Biggin Sadly was probably the worst weekend in modern airshow history in the Uk, It started with a is is Venom having a undercarriage failure of some sort, This led eventually to Vampire and Sea Vixen routine and the tragic loss of the Vampire and its crew.

Honestly the whole contest has gone beyond a joke now, And the only reason anybody seems to watch it in the UK is for Terry Wogan’s commentary, The guy is a national treasure.

But i think its high time Uk takes a leaf from Italy’s songbook and pull out of this farce, We are one of the main backers of this competition and i am sure this money can be diverted elsewhere.

We have no chance of winning this again nor have any Western European countries, It has no value as a talent contest and even less value in promoting a nation.

I wonder if it should be changed so all acts sing in English and there nationalities are kept secret until voting has ended, Admittedly in this day and age that maybe difficult but at least the songs would be judged on there own merit and not on politics.

I think its virtually impossible to save this competition now unless somebody is brave enough to totally change the way it is run.

The RM689 crash is on the commercially released video of Woodford airshow (I know – I have it), so it’s hardly suprising that it ended up on Youtube…

I am suprised to hear that as i thought most companies avoided showing the accidents on Video releases, Poor show on that company i think.

As to You tube it seems to me to be the latest way to show anything sick or gory, And sadly in this day and age we have wall to wall news networks and everybody pretty much has some sort of camera so things like this will just become more common.

It does make me wonder if many of the watchers have really experienced the horror of such a accident first hand, I think some may feel differently if they had, I could justify somebody who has witnessed such a event watching it on TV etc as i have done this mostly to try and understand in my mind what i saw and deal with it, Having sadly witnessed 5 fatal accidents i can say it gets to you at times.