My point was that the trajectories of airplanes in airshows should never point twds populated areas.
If you say never, it would be best to have no spectators. 10 Miles out of shore would be safe enough? Or in the middle of the desert?
A plane like the Hunter can travel 7 miles in a minute.
mdoerr wrote:
A plane like the Hunter can travel 7 miles in a minute.
It can. But it does not have to. A plane like a Hunter can do a beautiful display at 200KT and not lower than 500ft. That leaves the spectators plenty of time to watch it from all sides and take good photographs and it will not move far away during turns either. At that speed and with some altitude, if something goes wrong the pilot has enough time to point the aircraft away from people inside and outside the airfield. He would even have a good chance to eject safely.
Doing low-level aerobatics with these things is an unnecessary risk and not even appreciated by many of the spectators, because one can’t see the aircraft for most of the time. If the airshow organizer wants to have a low-level act at all costs, why not take an Extra or Edge or whatever contemporary aerobatic plane for that? They are small lightweight and don’t carry a lot of fuel so that a crash will remain very contained. And they are agile enough to perform their display within the airfield perimeter.
Doing low-level aerobatics with these things is an unnecessary risk …
Thumbs up!
Flyer59 wrote:
The people who were in those cars don’t have to wait anymore, if that is your point.
And this is the danger of this argument: let’s ban anything that has a nonzero risk to a non-participant. It’s a play on the emotion, not on the mathematics of risk.
The idea is that we base stuff on acceptable risk, and we don’t ban things on the outcomes of unusual events. It doesn’t take long before the nanny state looks at other things: for example, off the departure end of 26 at EGNS there is a road. Should we ban single engine aircraft from runway 26 because an engine might quit and lead to someone crashing on the road, taking out some motorists? No, we find the risk – while present and forseeable – is at an acceptable level.
Pretty much every airport suitable for an airshow will have something populated (at least a road) within 1km of the end of the runway. How many non-participants have died in airshow accidents in the last 2 decades? Very very few. Notwithstanding the Shoreham crash the risk is actually pretty damned low.
alioth wrote:
for example, off the departure end of 26 at EGNS there is a road. Should we ban single engine aircraft from runway 26 because an engine might quit and lead to someone crashing on the road, taking out some motorists? No, we find the risk – while present and forseeable – is at an acceptable level.
UK already bans single engine aircraft from overflying London (glide clear) whereas Flyer59 used a 1970s SEP to fly very low over Munich for totally unnecessary long time (many hours) and thereby endangering a lot of innocent people. Imagine the kindergarden groups he could have crashed into, etc… What makes it even worse: he did that for commercial reasons, i.e. he endangered innocent children for the sake of his own profit!
So we should ban Flyer59 from further endangering our society, shouldn’t we?
alioth wrote:
And this is the danger of this argument: let’s ban anything that has a nonzero risk to a non-participant. It’s a play on the emotion, not on the mathematics of risk.
Precisely this. It would be very interesting to compare what Flyer59 sees as an acceptable risk figure for displays and compare to to the risk figure for many other common activities.
It’s also interesting about what is being defined as a populated area. I’ve only driven into shoreham 10 or so times. But I wouldn’t call the junction where the aircraft went down a populated area.
whereas Flyer59 used a 1970s SEP to fly very low over Munich for totally unnecessary long time (many hours) and thereby endangering a lot of innocent people. Imagine the kindergarden groups he could have crashed into, etc… What makes it even worse: he did that for commercial reasons, i.e. he endangered innocent children for the sake of his own profit! So we should ban Flyer59 from further endangering our society, shouldn’t we?
Thanks for that. It’s nice to have friends.
And now show me where I wrote that anything should be “banned” or “stopped”. You had you chance to make a mean comparison and to ridicule what I wrote, ok. But you have, obviously, not read what I wrote in the first place.
PS. The “profit” you are talking about, looks like this: I spent 5000 Euros on fuel, 3000 on additional camera equipment, did 25 flights over Munich and got € 1.59 for each of the 3500 sold copies of the book. You’re a clever guy, so you can calculate my “profit” yourself.
PS2: I do not think that circling overhead a city in 1000 ft in a perfectly serviced Warrior is a “high risk”. It might be for you though :-)
Precisely this. It would be very interesting to compare what Flyer59 sees as an acceptable risk figure for displays and compare to to the risk figure for many other common activities. …. It’s also interesting about what is being defined as a populated area. I’ve only driven into shoreham 10 or so times. But I wouldn’t call the junction where the aircraft went down a populated area.
I have never been to Shoreham, and I was speaking in general. No, I would not have thought that overflying the highway would be an unneccessary risk. I am also aware (and live by that too) that you cannot avoid all risks in life. OTOH i think that Jet displays contain a much higher risk than normal aerobatic displays, and I think that every possible precaution should be taken. But it looks like i am asking for too much.
See, now you’re offended just because I turned your argument around (without meaning anything of what I wrote). I did read very well what you wrote (and so did the others) and I did not like what I read. Imagine what had happened if you had actually crashed into a kindergarden group. All the things I mentioned and much worse than that. Guess why the UK have the glide-clear rule.
One should be very careful demanding rules that limit the freedom of others. As you have just seen, it does hurt when it touches your own personal freedom.
Ah, you don’t mean what you write! That makes it a lot easier to take.
I, on the other hand, did mean what i wrote.
As an intelligent person you should not compare the aerobatic low level display of a fighter jet with my circling overhead the city in 1000 ft AGL.
