Admittedly forces PR does seem to tend to “positively discriminate” when it comes to putting material in the public. I’d cite events such as the PR around the all female Merlin crew a year or two ago – which personally I found a bit cringeworthy, as in this day and age I’d think we were beyond that stage. It’s not like we’ve had female aircrew for over 20 years!

But for the Reds, no. The selection is different, as of course more than any other it seems to be personality based as well as the essential skills based. As I said in my previous post, you can’t mess about with flight safety, or that of the public, for what would be PR purposes.

As has been said elsewhere, to put her hand up and say that there’s an issue has probably taken very big balls, so to speak.

With the prevalence of social engineering and political correctness in the Armed Forces, could it be that Kirsty Stewart was there as the token woman?
That must be the suspicion.

Er, No.

You really think they’d do that in a team noted (IIRC) for flying lengthy aerobatic displays in what is, IIRC, quite close formation, generally, IIRC, in front of large crowds of people (apart from training of course).

No. I could say worse, but I’ll bite my tongue.:mad:

VX927. I agree. The most stupid, crass, and insensitive thing I’ve read all day (except for the similar comments from some of the dullards reading the Daily Fail).

Excellent moves by both pilots after the midair.
As we all have seen they both had very little time to do what they had to do.

Agreed. Brave of the Skyraider pilot too. He couldn’t have been criticised by anyone had he decided to climb to height and abandon ship with the extent of his damage.

My question….Watching in real life, and looking at the V Formation diagrams in the accident report it seems that the first aircraft (Mustang) crosses in front of the second aircraft (Skyraider) during the break.

Would it not be better for the outside aircraft to break first?
In my military formation flying (which incl a war zone) before a break we went from a “V” to an “Echelon Left or Right” or “Trail”.

Indeed, and my immediate thoughts on seeing the video reports of the accident were the same – it’s difficult to do a perfectly safe run in and break in anything other than echelon (unless you are doing an opposition break, and in which the middle aircraft will break last). Breaking from vic with the leader first requires significant vertical displacement before any bank can be applied to gain lateral separation. Do a break in echelon, and the subsequent aircraft in the break shouldn’t really have to worry too much about the positioning of the previous aircraft in the formation until getting their spacing on finals (unless the leader has a brain fart and tries to break the wrong way!).

It’ll be interesting to see the format for this years balbo. TBH, it doubt it would make any difference to the spectacle if the final run ins were made in echelon as opposed to vic.

You might be surprised, I find that the Airfix VC-10 camoflaged K.2 boxing is quite hard to find these days compared to say the preceding British Airways boxing, I wonder if was because it was only issued for a very short time.
The all over grey K.2 boxing is readily availble, but the original BOAC example seems quite scarce.

BTW does anyone here know how good the recent 1:72nd Anigrand kit of the K.2 is?

A grey “new boxing” Airfix K2 went for £30 on ebay last week!

I think people will need to see realistic plans before contributing a penny.

I think it will also be a sensible idea for the group in question to produce said plans before opening up any means for online donations. Individuals may wish to contribute privately as they see fit (and bring it upon themselves to find a suitable individual or project account in which to put their money), but to open up a scheme to donate to a project which, as it stands, is little more than a germ of an idea of a few enthusiasts and an accompanying website. Hopefully the “donate” page will remain in its current form for a little while yet. To do anything else could be quite damaging.

It is a Mk XXI and she is the ex 1 Sqn mascot. The a/c has been paint stripped to carry out a survey and some minor repairs then she will be reassembled and repainted correctly. She will remain at BBMF untill 1 Sqn reforms.

That’s a shame in a way, as I take it that means it’ll go back well out of public view in a hangar wherever the next 1 Sqn HQ ends up being – I was hoping by your first post it would be becoming a permanent resident, particularly being such a rare beast.

I suppose 1 Sqn has enough friends in high places (or with access to ears in high places) to keep their potentially very valuable mascot in such trying times. 🙂

It’s nice to see a restaurant expansion, from where real takings beckon.

I hope they’re going to re-position the sign!:D

It’s also worth noting that the aircraft will have pre booked slots for repainting – you can’t just turn up at Manchester and hope to go straight into the hangar! This would explian why you often see them at Brize in the patchwork, as they arr waiting between the return from Saints, and the ferry to Manchester.

IIRC, ZA147, which is shown at St Athan last November flight testing, didn’t go to Manchester til the week before Christmas.:-)