Ben@Forest wrote:I agree he could have said some of these things - and if the interviewer had not been so full on 'what are you going to change now?' he might have delivered better answers. But I'm afraid the Today programme does like to challenge every interviewee whether it's required or not. If this bloke had said one wrong thing it may have affected how airshows are run without any recourse to the official report. Why would you do that?
You might do that because there's an airshow happening next week that intends to run the same risk with other people's lives. There's a long history of accidents occurring at airshows so it isn't necessary to wait until they find out exactly what fault/error occurred this time.
And I bet they're looking at risk assessments right now for just that, but they don't need to broadcast the results on national radio. What if he'd said something and then 25% of all air shows said they had to cancel as it was no longer financially viable? That may happen - but only after the circumstances have been properly investigated, not as a knee-jerk reaction.
Psamathe wrote:Re: Shoreham Tragedy Interviewer came across better as he was arguing that the particular display should have been carried out over the sea (something I guess cannot be done for all airshows e.g. inland ones).
It would have been pointless to perform the manouver over the sea. If you look at a map then it becomes obvious - although Shoreham airport is close to the coast, it's still around a kilometer inland. The spectators at the show wouldn't have seen much if the pilot had been flying over the sea.
Psamathe wrote:Re: Shoreham Tragedy Interviewer came across better as he was arguing that the particular display should have been carried out over the sea (something I guess cannot be done for all airshows e.g. inland ones).
It would have been pointless to perform the manouver over the sea. If you look at a map then it becomes obvious - although Shoreham airport is close to the coast, it's still around a kilometer inland. The spectators at the show wouldn't have seen much if the pilot had been flying over the sea.
I was repeating what the interview had asked/suggested. Interestingly the representative did not comment on this - which suggests he had not fully familiarised himself with the geography. I don't know the details of the area but I would have thought it something likely to be raised at an interview and so he (interviewee/representative) should have had the answer ready.
Psamathe wrote:I was repeating what the interview had asked/suggested. Interestingly the representative did not comment on this - which suggests he had not fully familiarised himself with the geography. I don't know the details of the area but I would have thought it something likely to be raised at an interview and so he (interviewee/representative) should have had the answer ready.
To some extent I agree (though of course I presume he was not directly involved with the running of the Shoreham show). However I would like to consider myself as pretty experienced and knowledgeable in my field, but if faced with a barrage of questions from an attack dog like Humphreys (and to a lesser extent Naughtie) I might not perform well - especially if what I said might impact upon others in my line of business. I like the Today programme but Humphreys in particular is a sanctimonious git.
I watched the video on youtube. Looks very much like a high-speed stall, aka, an accelerated stall. I witnessed an identical crash of a Pitts Special about 500m away from me. Went into a loop, too low, tried to pull out at high speed - too much load.. He perished.
I'm in France and off the internet most of the time - am only now catching up on this story, but back in uK we live fairly close to the crash scene and often drive along that bit of the A27 (it's not really a cycling route). Not heard anything from other people in the area, except a friend of my wife who's just e-mailed to say, if she hadn't been delayed she'd have been on that road at the precise time. Scary! Terrible tragedy for the people involved.
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity. Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments... --- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Psamathe wrote:Re: Shoreham Tragedy Radio 4 Today program had some official from CAA this morning and he didn't handle the interview well. He did comment about their safety record (which he said was good) but fell down badly when asked why the CAA would wait for the AAIB report (which can often take ages and ages) before reviewing the airshow regulations..
I agree he didn't handle the interview well but I think he was from the the British Air Display Association which is going to be entirely guided by what official bodies say. If he'd come out with a whole series of statements which then didn't match up with the AAIB and the CAA he'd look daft. I'm afraid once again this is officious BBC interviewing throwing questions at the wrong person at the wrong time.
According to the Guardian the CAA have just announced emergency measures for all air displays. Now the BADA will go along with that without having made different statements in advance.
Round here they take to tow in as soon as they release when I've seen them, long before they land.
I dont recall any facility to do this, my memory is that the tow "rope" was just attached to the back of the tug and nothing can be done to it until it lands. The most I can conceive of is an emergency release handle like the glider has but that would just drop the rope to the ground.
Sorry about the OT.... that's what I've thought I've seen. Either that or they were going so far away that it seemed to, but I can't quite see how. I'll watch more carefully next time. I've never seen a light aircaft land there with anything trailing when I've been going past the runway, which is fairly often, and AFAIK the only reason they use powered aircraft is for towing.
If any pilot was to 'go low' with a cable just because someone complained about dangerous cables, IMHO they should have their licence taken away PDQ and permanently.
Round here they take to tow in as soon as they release when I've seen them, long before they land.
I dont recall any facility to do this, my memory is that the tow "rope" was just attached to the back of the tug and nothing can be done to it until it lands. The most I can conceive of is an emergency release handle like the glider has but that would just drop the rope to the ground.
Edit- It seems from later posts that I'm mistaken, but that is what I thought I had seen, and more than once. Just shows how easy it is to be wrong. If they do trail the cable here when they land, I've never heard of any problems with it in the 20+ years I've lived here, or seen any, and the runway is very close to a road I use regularly which is at right angles to the runway.
Round here they take to tow in as soon as they release when I've seen them, long before they land.
I dont recall any facility to do this, my memory is that the tow "rope" was just attached to the back of the tug and nothing can be done to it until it lands. The most I can conceive of is an emergency release handle like the glider has but that would just drop the rope to the ground.
Edit- It seems from later posts that I'm mistaken, but that is what I thought I had seen, and more than once. Just shows how easy it is to be wrong. If they do trail the cable here when they land, I've never heard of any problems with it in the 20+ years I've lived here, or seen any, and the runway is very close to a road I use regularly which is at right angles to the runway.
They have to come in very low for it to start presenting a risk to people. The issue is because pilots normally like to land as close to the start of the runway as they can - makes for less pushing, pulling, towing, taxiing, back for the next take-off. The one nearly very bad landing I did was because of trying to land too close to the take-off point (realised in time so recovered). Sensible/considerate pilots will not take the risk (just as sensible/considerate drivers don't play with their phones whilst driving around). Trouble is, when an airfield has a culture of selfishness ...
The release in the glider detaches the tow from the glider not the tug (yellow ball). For towing it is the only release (normal/emergency) but there will be a weak link in the towline a short distance from the glider. That's my memory as I've only done a few tow launches (only from 2 airfields) and most of mine were winch launches - and for those you change weak link depending on the glider (weaker for lighter); and they are not hard to break and you get unpopular when you break them as people have to go out and search for the short tow section dropped (you still pull the release even if you've broken the line as you don't want to land with a short section of tow line still attached to the front of the glider).
I dont recall any facility to do this, my memory is that the tow "rope" was just attached to the back of the tug and nothing can be done to it until it lands. The most I can conceive of is an emergency release handle like the glider has but that would just drop the rope to the ground.
The tow rope remains attached to the tug. There's no release facility. Only the glider can release the rope from the hook up. On an aerotow, when the glider releases, he turns left, the tug turns right. When the tug lands the rope is more or less trailing horizontally behind so, no chance of hooking something on the approach.
Ben@Forest wrote: To some extent I agree (though of course I presume he was not directly involved with the running of the Shoreham show). However I would like to consider myself as pretty experienced and knowledgeable in my field, but if faced with a barrage of questions from an attack dog like Humphreys (and to a lesser extent Naughtie) I might not perform well - especially if what I said might impact upon others in my line of business. I like the Today programme but Humphreys in particular is a sanctimonious git.
Psamathe wrote:Re: Shoreham Tragedy Radio 4 Today program had some official from CAA this morning and he didn't handle the interview well. He did comment about their safety record (which he said was good) but fell down badly when asked why the CAA would wait for the AAIB report (which can often take ages and ages) before reviewing the airshow regulations. The interviewer's point was that whatever the cause, accidents clearly do happen so, irrespective of the cause he maintained the CAA should be reviewing procedures to remove/lower than risk now rather than wait ages (by e.g. moving such displays over where there are no people. CAA guy's response was that they rather wanted to stop such accidents (hence waiting for AAIB) whereas interviewer was arguing to act now to reduce risk for public (and there will always be a risk of accidents in these types of display). Interviewer came across better as he was arguing that the particular display should have been carried out over the sea (something I guess cannot be done for all airshows e.g. inland ones).
Ian
The usual something must be done knee jerk response. Tragic as they are these are the first spectator/public deaths in an air display in the UK in over 60 years. How about instead doing something about the quarter of a million plus violent deaths of members of the public over that time from road accidents. They've had plenty of time to think about an answer to that one.
