Hawker Hunter down at Shoreham airshow

Re-evaluating the risk benefit balance and making changes is a healthy exercise for any activity and comparisons to other unrelated activities is just a fatuous irellevance.

Yes but we still don’t know exactly what happened here do we, so calls from people to “ban this” or “change that” are a little premature and completely knee-jerk and based sadly (but probably) on viewing sensationalist and speculative media coverage.

I’m all for increasing safety where practically possible, but all too often rules and measures designed to increase safety end up strangling and killing off the very activities that they were designed to make safer in the first place. That doesn’t do anyone any favours and means that life becomes duller and less rewarding for everyone as a result. A life almost completely free from risk surely wouldn’t be worth living in the first place?

Words like “huge flying bomb” just reek of sensationalism! You car is also a “large high speed bomb packed full of highly explosive fuel just waiting to immolate innocent bystanders” but i bet you don’t think that when you get in it to ‘nip down the shops’………..

No offence was intended, I was highlighting the fact that a 15 ton jet engined vehicle filled will hundreds of litres of aviation fuel is potentially a very very dangerous object. And yes, I also consider cars as extremely dangerous objects, particularly when riding or walking in close proximity to them – and also whilst driving them, I consider the implications of my actions.

From memory I don’t think anyone on this thread called for a ban. In fact, quite the opposite – if you read my comments again you’ll realise that I was at said air show as a spectator. The aftermath of this tragedy has me questioning the safety of innocent bystanders (naturally). No one is trying to take away the adrenaline fuelled life experiences, but I think it was convert that made the point that those killed did not intend to join in with this partucular joie de vivre at that moment in time.
I merely commented that I’m keen to hope that any changes made to further mitigation at future shows drastically decrease the chances for similar tragedy’s.

Convert – your point about minutes per death in correlation to activity is also bang on point.

From memory I don’t think anyone on this thread called for a ban

skydragon did

It’s time to stop air show displays IMHO.

but he

used to hold a pilots license, instrument and night rating, etc

so he’s an expert and has the CAA on speed dial for when he is policing airshows. 🙄

Thanks duir for trying to steer this back.

Whatever caused the tragedy is not yet known, ill-informed internet speculation and opinion spouting helps no one, least of all the victims families.

Tom_W1987 – Member
sorry thats balls maxtourque…he was pulling high aoa whilst still losing height….ergo he had to little energy going into the loop or juat executed it to low. You can pull as much aoa as you like but if your airspeed was too low going into the loop youre going to have a shock.

So if you are at max pull and unable to increase you positive pitch rate (and hence unable to tighten your trajectory), going faster will help?

Too little speed INTO the loop is critical, too little speed past the Apogee, generally, isn’t (note the word “generally” nothing is set in stone or certain.)

You’ll also note i used the words “classical stall” to differentiate what the man in the street might call a stall from the pure physical situation where the wing cannot support the load you require at the AOA you are asking it to act. Obviously the dynamics of the wing and airframe loading are complex in this situation and at this point, i don’t think we can separate the likely scenarios due to a lack of evidence. Again, generally speaking the reason making the min safe height at the apogee of a loop maneuver is so critical is because this sets the eventual exit height. IE if you are too low at apogee, you have to add power to increase the peak dynamic wing load, but this extra speed then requires a higher wing loading as the G force to maintain the same turn radius also increases. IN fact, the only exit scenario which works is a complete abort at apogee and a full roll out to upright. If you continue the roll beyond a few deg nose down your fate is sealed. Unfortunately, this is what looks to have occurred here. ;-(

ill-informed internet speculation and opinion spouting

I only ever login when its “Speculation Track World”

or is it Same Ten W….. never mind.

MoreCashThanDash

Whatever caused the tragedy is not yet known, ill-informed internet speculation and opinion spouting helps no one, least of all the victims families.

This is an “Discussion Forum”. Its entire purpose is to allow discussion on the topics started within its virtual walls. As long as that discussion is:

1) Honest
2) Non inflammatory
3) Respectful

Then i fail to see the problem. Yes, some commentators are not as “expert” as others, but why should that mean they can’t be included in the discussion?

I due course, the truth will be revealed, until then, it is a natural human reaction to want to talk and discuss events that have occurred, be they good or bad.

Anyway thinking about this again – I’m not sure this is actually true. How many man minutes have been spent by people stood (or sat in cars) at the end of a jet aircraft aerobatic display line per death in the UK vs. how many man minutes of cycling or driving (or being a passenger in a car) are there in the UK per death? Given the 100s of millions of minutes of time on the road every single day of the year by the UK population and the remarkably few times anyone is ever likely to be placed under a jet aircraft display path, I’d be willing to bet with this 11 deaths yesterday, even if these were the only deaths ever, you are statically more likely to suffer death by Hunter crash than using the national road network.

That’s perhaps the single worst/most dishonest use of statistics that I’ve ever seen. It should be done with flying minutes per accident for the aircraft, or flying minutes during any aerobatic routine.

Otherwise you are narrowing your sample size down and quantifying risk to that specific event as opposed to a generalized risk. There are plenty of instances where you can raise the risk of driving by doing the same.

Now lets keep in mind that aerobatics also includes the RAF doing ACM/BFM training and every hobby flier who dabbles in mild aerobatics.

For those claiming that speculation is disrespectful.. With all due respect, errrrr, **** off..
As if the families of those involved are looking to the wisdom of the regular posters on an obscure mtb forum for answers.
Get a grip

Chaps I have to say on balance the discussion so far has been pretty reasonable and considered, and it has been interesting to read.

This was a truly dreadful incident and I hope all those involved can have some form of closure in the coming days and weeks.

You’ll have probably seen the brutal murder of Don Lock in Worthing last month. I’d known him for a number of years through cycling and it was a sad privilege to have been part of the funeral cortege.

The abrupt and savage way he was taken from his family and friends has similar resonances to what happened yesterday. It was touching to see the number of people paying their respects along his funeral route and I’d like to hope the various communities affected by yesterday’s events can come together in a similar fashion.

So if you are at max pull and unable to increase you positive pitch rate (and hence unable to tighten your trajectory), going faster will help?

Too little speed INTO the loop is critical, too little speed past the Apogee, generally, isn’t (note the word “generally” nothing is set in stone or certain.)

Too little speed at the top of the loop for a given height is an issue, if you don’t have an f-16 level thrust ratio to apply to get yourself out of the mess.

AoA doesn’t indicated continuous turn rate, you can be pulling high aoa – creating loads of drag and be travelling on the same vector you were before….eg cobra maneuver/why thrust vectoring isn’t all that amazing.

Dogfighting and aerobatics is all about energy, energy, energy.

Yup , 1 1/2 miles from my house …
I heard the crash and saw the aftermath

That’s perhaps the single worst/most dishonest use of statistics that I’ve ever seen. It should be done with flying minutes per accident for the aircraft, or flying minutes during any aerobatic routine.

If that’s genuinely the worst you have seen you don’t do much statistics 😉

Not in the slightest – that would be measuring a completely different thing not related to the discussion. We are not talking about the risk factor to the pilot or the plane but very specifically the risk factor in being on the ground at the end of the low level routine path. The vast majority of military aerobatics and ‘hobbiest’ aerobatics does not qualify for this as most is done away from the air field above 2000ft. The number of people and their time spend in ‘the zone’ is key to working out the statistic if you are going to quantify it against something like the national number of road deaths.

I stand by my notion that it’s probably now statistically more dangerous to stand where they were stood that drive a car but (its a big but) only if you are comparing risk per minute. In reality we spend a lot more time on roads so the cumulative risk over time is higher.

@convert, you could argue that if you commute past areas of high aerial intensity on a regular basis it’s only a matter of time.
A1 has three MATZ it runs through in a relatively short stretch of road.

it’s only a matter of time.

You probably could – but it would be a very long time – like millions and millions of minutes. A bit like the number of minutes you would have to pedal around the streets of London before being ‘statistically’ knocked off and killed.

I will add, we won’t know until the investigation was done. He did appear to dip a wing which means he pulled up hard at the last minute….which I guess could mean he wasn’t at the limit of his turn rate earlier on in the loop….or perhaps had too much speed.

It was a weird loop as well, like some kind of odd combat turn.

Not in the slightest – that would be measuring a completely different thing not related to the discussion. We are not talking about the risk factor to the pilot or the plane but very specifically the risk factor in being on the ground at the end of the low level routine path. The vast majority of military aerobatics and ‘hobbiest’ aerobatics does not qualify for this as most is done away from the air field above 2000ft. The number of people and the time in ‘the zone’ is key to working out the statistic if you are going to quantify it against something like the national number of road deaths.

I stand by my notion that it’s probably now statistically more dangerous to stand where they were stood that drive a car but (its a big but) only if you are comparing risk per minute. In reality we spend a lot more time on roads so the cumulative risk over time is higher.

Good point. It’s still pretty easy to flat spin into the ground from 2000 feet.

The carfest accident as sad as it was, only pilot that lost his life, the location is very sparsely populated but the A303 and M3 are pretty close though.

From Oulton Park, about 200 miles close ❓

Tom_W1987
I will add, we won’t know until the investigation was done. He did appear to dip a wing which means he pulled up hard at the last minute….which I guess could mean he wasn’t at the limit of his turn rate earlier on in the loop….or perhaps had too much speed.

Agreed! The entire short display seems somewhat disjointed to me. Even the “snap roll” at the start of the display is frankly untidy (over rotation followed by reversal back to the necessary exit bank angle), and the subsequent entry to the loop seems delayed.
The exit trajectory certainly looks to be nowhere near max rate, although of course, without knowing the aircrafts operating conditions on this particular day that is difficult to call. The one fact that looks certain is that when the pilot eventually did demand a max pull, the aircraft looks to have responded well, right up to the start of an incipent stall, with the characteristic wing wobble of a short cord swept wing aircraft.

One significant advantage the investigation will have is that there is plenty of footage from different angles, allowing a very precise trajectory analysis and simulation to be constructed via triangulation (ie time synchronization of the footage, back from the impact event, in conjunction with knowing where each bit of footage was filmed from, allows a true 3d flight path to be generated)

The wobble being talked about as a stall…if he was on the display/runway line he would have been heading for queueing traffic on the westbound carriageway just before the traffic lights, it could have been intentional turn to the right to crash onto the junction between the lights as it was probably the only bit of tarmac without a stationary queue.

Joining the speculation track world did anyone notice a small blu grey bloom of what looks like smoke or mist from the rear centre of the plane shortly before the wobble? Would a leaking hydraulic system reduce elevator throw to a degree where full deflection became impossible? Just askin’

@duir – as I said in my post ‘IMHO’ – if your opinion differs to mine that’s fine.

(Btw I’ve never claimed to be an expert, only someone who has some real-world experience of aviation and who is concerned by what has happened)

@duir – as I said in my post ‘IMHO’ – if your opinion differs to mine that’s fine.

(Btw I’ve never claimed to be an expert, only someone who has some real-world experience of aviation and who is concerned by what has happened)

Fair enough but to the untrained eye you appear to be calling for airshows to be banned?

I too have some real world aviation experience, I’m a 737 skipper with thousands and thousands of flying hours in the airlines. As such I am completely unqualified to pass opinions on flying a Hunter at an airshow as I have never done it! So if I am not qualified, the STW armchair pilots mafia definitely are not!!!

To be good enough to display a fast jet you need to be something pretty special, there is only one person that knows what really happened, I really hope he makes it.

Well here’s what his mate thinks, according to the BBC:

Neil McCarthy, a friend of pilot Andy Hill, told the BBC News Channel that the loop manoeuvre was regarded as “one of the most dangerous” to attempt.
He said: “If you don’t have the right entry speed, the right pull back on the stick, the G-force, the right gate height at the top of the loop manoeuvre, it can go wrong pretty quick”.

I haven’t read every post but has anyone wondered why the Hunter was exiting a loop over a main road & not along the length of the runway?

@Duir – ok, let me revise what I posted earlier. What I should have perhaps written, is that UK air shows in their current form should be banned. My personal opinion.

I haven’t commented on what was the cause of the accident at Shoreham, nor am I commenting on the specifics of a fast jet display.

I agree with the sentiment of your comments, but don’t you think it’s unacceptable to have a situation where the display authorisation limits are set so that pilot error, or an aircraft failure can result in what has happened?

I believe there have been eight crashes at UK air shows in the last five years. If correct that is disappointing.

Trying not to speculate too much, so this is only what I’ve worked out from what I’ve seen, and trying to answer the point: it looks to me like the loop wasn’t all executed in the same vertical plane as a pure pitch manoeuvre as you’d expect for a classic loop – there seems to be some roll or yaw going on there, resulting in it exiting the loop in a different direction from the one it entered. Now I’ve no idea whether it was planned as a pure pitch loop, or something more complex (and not going to rely on media commentary for that), so maybe that was planned, but it seems possible something went wrong regarding his exit direction – certainly he shouldn’t have been exiting the loop there.

(I’ve never flown an airliner, but have done aerobatics (badly) with RC model aircraft, so have some idea of the dynamics involved and the speed/height requirements – I’ve also had the ground get in the way when I’ve got it wrong – which probably makes me just about as unqualified to comment on flying a Hunter at an airshow as duir is).

Reading this thread I can’t help but envisage an Airplane type scenario where a panic stricken stewardess asks over the intercom “is there a pilot on board???”, and 2 passengers wearing STW t-shirts jump up “yes ma’am, we both have put many flying hours into our RC model aircraft”.

I have also noticed the word “ergo” being used on at least one occasion and feel pretty certain that at least one person has typed in “I concur” before thinking better off it.

More sad news in the last hour, it seems even the latest tally of 11 deaths is going to increase significantly as there are still people unaccounted for.

It looked like a barrel roll of sorts.

The BBC can’t be trusted in cases like this; I’ve seen some appalling reporting and this appears to be no different.

The loop isn’t the most dangerous manoeuvre. It’s very straightforward….. A barrel roll, however, is harder to coordinate and sadly has claimed more lives.

Even a wingover which is regarded by many as a benign manoeuvre has its dangers. A friend span off one due to low energy entry and it claimed his life.

Anyway we’ll see what the experts come up with. I would say that his wing rock would be heavy buffet (stall) related rather than a last minute attempt to change direction. Andy Hill is an incredibly experienced pilot and would have known not to sacrifice pitch ability (which sadly he’d lost the battle at that stage) for turn capability.

Guardian video

Watching the Guardian video above, it looks like the engine surges about 4 seconds in?

Not sure about a surge looks more like it could be something else in shot briefly, perhaps a bird?

From that video, to me it looks like he was coming out of the loop OK, but then loses thrust.

Sky News reporting that Police stating death toll may rise to 20+

Terrible news

Tragic incident.

re: the debate debate, debate is healthy, if kept respectful.

The BBC have a new angle from the ground and it reinforces my view the loop was “twisted” the plane rolls as it reaches the highest point and then spends too long going straight down

For some reason, it looks like the start of the loop was without enough speed. At the top it looks to be travelling at 90 degree from entry heading, with a turn flung into the last half to try and recover heading. But not enough speed for the amount of elevator he pulls; stalled, and terrible result.

It all looks smoother in the Guardian vid. The speculation of the “aviation experts” in the various media is just as wild/wilder than anything on this thread.

Like the pilot I’m quite old now, the last time I was offered a drive in a rally car I turned it down. Aging reflexes, a lack of regular competition driving, narrow roads and unfamiliarity with a 300bhp/tonne car seemed a recipe for disaster. I’ve sold my BMX and jump bikes too.

Terrible news this moringing about likely death toll

As for those thst think airshows should be banned we had the private jet crash on landing at Blackbushe straight into the car auction site which is at the end of the runway. AccIdents happen

Terrible that it could now rise to over 20 people that have died. Starting to hear from friends and friends of friends as we all head back to work who were very near and lucky to just miss it but were witness to some terrible sights.

As for those thst think airshows should be banned

I’ve been through the thread again and can only see one person who says that in his opinion all air shows should be stopped, so can we move on from this now as 70 out of the 71 that have commented on this so far aren’t of the opinion that they will or should be banned.

I hope you weren’t getting that impression from my post – I’d have no idea how to fly an airliner based on that, and I tried to point out the limitations of my experience. If the worst came to the worst then I’d probably have some idea what to do as I’ve sat in the cockpit of a big jet whilst flying and even taken the controls of a light aircraft, but then I’d put the skills of somebody who’d played flight sim on a computer above mine and doubtless there would be at least one of those on board. I suspect most people who’ve flown RC aircraft or airliners recognise the vast disparity in skills (and the vast difference between either of those and flying a display in a Hunter).

I can’t be bothered to go through the thread again, but I got the impression that rather more than that were suggesting that airshows should be significantly curtailed (ie only straight and level flight in anything which isn’t a current operational military aircraft).