Bad summer for airshows. Make it stop.

A YouTube search for "Wing walker falls - Selfridge Air Show 2011" will reveal what happened. The videographer faded to black during the fall, respectfully.
 
**** seems to me I read that Kyle Franklin is "back in the business;" and (not certain) may be at Great State of Maine Airshow on the coming weekend. I'll be a volunteer, have been assigned to "Ramp Patrol."

HR
 
These sorts of accidents are always sad, and awful to see -- but we must never forget that these folks are doing EXACTLY what they want, in EXACTLY the way they want to do it. No one stuck a gun to their heads to make them do these things -- airshow performers do it for the love of flying, and the thrill of achieving what most of us think is nearly impossible.

Transferring from an airplane to a helicopter in flight carries with it great risks. Flying itself is not 100% save, as evidenced by the number of friends and acquaintances I've lost to aviation over the years. Does this knowledge stop me from flying? Hell, no.

The performers know the risks. We do, too. None of us are getting off of this planet alive, and some like to live a bit closer to the edge than others. I sure hope we never live in a world where airshows are legislated out of existence.

My thoughts are with the family.
 
The only thing that gets me about these types of things are that airshows are the ONE THING that draws the masses to aviation. If the performers have to push the bounds to the limit that it starts raining airplanes and performers, it just ends up confirming whatever preconceptions the general public has about aviation being dangerous and that "somebody needs to do something to stop this".
 
jason said:
The only thing that gets me about these types of things are that airshows are the ONE THING that draws the masses to aviation. If the performers have to push the bounds to the limit that it starts raining airplanes and performers, it just ends up confirming whatever preconceptions the general public has about aviation being dangerous and that "somebody needs to do something to stop this".
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You are, of course, correct.

It is therefore up to us -- we, the people who are a part of everyday society, but who also happen to fly "those crazy little planes" -- to explain the differences.

It's not easy, but you know what? On Friday, we had a family of TEN driving into Port Aransas when the driver lost control (Fell asleep? It was mid-day, but who knows?), went into the ditch, hit a culvert, and flipped the van end-over-end three times at 60+ mph.

Three of them are dead. Three more will probably die. The rest are badly hurt.

Also Friday, we had a 22-year-old hotel guest collapse and die in his room. His distraught girlfriend spent 10 minutes in the lobby, while the EMS folks worked on her boyfriend, trying to extract his mom's phone number out of his password-protected cellphone so she could let her know what was going on.

I had the misfortune of meeting the mom later that evening, when she came to pick up her son's belongings. An atrial embolism was the initial diagnosis -- a quirk of fate that killed him just like *that* -- but who knows?

The look on her face will haunt me for a long time.

That boy came to the island for a fun getaway weekend with his gal -- and he left in a pine box, with his mom. At age 22!

Life is tragic, and there's no escaping it. Like I said, no one is getting off this planet alive. If these airshow guys want to jump from a Stearman to a helicopter, more power to 'em. They are choosing to make the most of their time here.

You have NO idea when you're time is up. Might as well live a little.
 
To clarify my title; Make the bad things stop.

Never ever should our response be to stop doing what we love, even if it comes with such events.
 
I agree, it seems to have been a bad year. I won't enumerate them, since I know I'd miss some, but I don't recall this many in a single season. And yes, I did hear (ANN?) that Kyle Franklin is doing three shows (a comedy routine) this season, and hopes to do a full season next year.
 
When I was a kid, we wouldn't have heard how bad it was for a couple of months in the magazines. Further back, it took more months. There'd be reasonable, well-thought-out and edited commentary with the news. Words of wisdom with the story.

Part of the problem with "the public" being afraid of "everything" is they've (we've) never in human history really experienced the ability to watch nearly-live footage of someone dying at almost any public hobby or sport, nor made it so easily accessible via simple plain text searches.

Soon we'll all see all the things we're interested in, live. Good or bad stuff.

In aviation, the live coverage of the Red Bull air races came the closest.

There is no commentary from experts or peers -- just death on the screen in real-time or very close to it.

Mobile broadband plus video is powerful technology and communication tech is better than ever, but the last two elder generations, we will never have the proper "mental filters" to handle continuous, instantaneous, bad news. Some will realize that only bad news is really newsworthy, but our reactions to seeing it will remain largely the same.

Gen-Y kids show signs of handling it very differently -- they just shrug -- and you realize they've been watching stuff like this since they were kids. Helmet cams, whole shows of people injuring themselves as entertainment, stuff like that. It won't deter the interested ones to have seen crashes and/or deaths on the Internet. Price is still the big killer of the dream for most.
 
denverpilot said:
In aviation, the live coverage of the Red Bull air races came the closest.

There is no commentary from experts or peers -- just death on the screen in real-time or very close to it.
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Huh? That's not really fair to Red Bull. I'm not aware of a single fatality?
 
Man, I feel bad for Todd's family and Kyle. He lost Amanda earlier this year and now Todd. Lost his father back in what, 05'?
 
Jay Honeck said:
You are, of course, correct.

It is therefore up to us -- we, the people who are a part of everyday society, but who also happen to fly "those crazy little planes" -- to explain the differences.

It's not easy, but you know what? On Friday, we had a family of TEN driving into Port Aransas when the driver lost control (Fell asleep? It was mid-day, but who knows?), went into the ditch, hit a culvert, and flipped the van end-over-end three times at 60+ mph.

Three of them are dead. Three more will probably die. The rest are badly hurt.

Also Friday, we had a 22-year-old hotel guest collapse and die in his room. His distraught girlfriend spent 10 minutes in the lobby, while the EMS folks worked on her boyfriend, trying to extract his mom's phone number out of his password-protected cellphone so she could let her know what was going on.

I had the misfortune of meeting the mom later that evening, when she came to pick up her son's belongings. An atrial embolism was the initial diagnosis -- a quirk of fate that killed him just like *that* -- but who knows?

The look on her face will haunt me for a long time.

That boy came to the island for a fun getaway weekend with his gal -- and he left in a pine box, with his mom. At age 22!

Life is tragic, and there's no escaping it. Like I said, no one is getting off this planet alive. If these airshow guys want to jump from a Stearman to a helicopter, more power to 'em. They are choosing to make the most of their time here.

You have NO idea when you're time is up. Might as well live a little.
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I agree that we all take our own risks and that life is short and all that jazz. Certainly these guys knew what they were getting themselves into.

But there is NO WAY that we can control the damage that one of these events has on aviation. I don't care how good of an ambassador I am for aviation. On a *really good* day I might be able to touch 3-4 people. These things happen in front of hundreds of thousands of people. People that may have walked away with stars in their eyes dreaming of taking to the skies instead walk away thinking "Man, I'll never do that".
 
jason said:
But there is NO WAY that we can control the damage that one of these events has on aviation. I don't care how good of an ambassador I am for aviation. On a *really good* day I might be able to touch 3-4 people. These things happen in front of hundreds of thousands of people. People that may have walked away with stars in their eyes dreaming of taking to the skies instead walk away thinking "Man, I'll never do that".
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IMO - if you are worried about the damage these events will have on aviation, you should just quit flying.

Joe Schmoe, losing his engine and putting his C210 into someone's (a nonparticipating, innocent, wrong-place-wrong-time someone) living room will and seems to have far more negative attention than airshow deaths.

It's sorta like saying Nascar is going to have huge negative impacts on how we are allowed to drive.

The FAA knows crashes are eventually going to happen. Flying airshows appears to be less than conducive to growing old.

Take a look at just one "aviation family." Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin. Both gone. Their kids fell in love, got married and continued to fly. Amanada replaced Todd as Kyles wingwalker. She died in May. Todd died yesterday. All that's left? Kyle. Even Jim LeRoy who flew with Franklin and Younkin in the MoD - gone.

These guys are constantly pushing the envelope. I mean, really, the guy was going from the Stearman to the 300. This is not an every day activity.
 
BellyUpFish said:
IMO - if you are worried about the damage these events will have on aviation, you should just quit flying.

Joe Schmoe, losing his engine and putting his C210 into someone's (a nonparticipating, innocent, wrong-place-wrong-time someone) living room will and seems to have far more negative attention than airshow deaths.

It's sorta like saying Nascar is going to have huge negative impacts on how we are allowed to drive.

The FAA knows crashes are eventually going to happen. Flying airshows appears to be less than conducive to growing old.

Take a look at just one "aviation family." Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin. Both gone. Their kids fell in love, got married and continued to fly. Amanada replaced Todd as Kyles wingwalker. She died in May. Todd died yesterday. All that's left? Kyle. Even Jim LeRoy who flew with Franklin and Younkin in the MoD - gone.

These guys are constantly pushing the envelope. I mean, really, the guy was going from the Stearman to the 300. This is not an every day activity.
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Really? I mean, really? I should quit flying because I think that people falling out of the sky may have a negative impact on the public perception of aviation? Wow. What does me flying have to do with any of this? My only comment is that we're to the point that loops and rolls aren't enough. I know that these performers know what they're getting themselves into. But the people attending aren't going to the show expecting to watch somebody die. At some point, the performers are going to have to realize that the need to "kick it up a notch" isn't worth the damage that will result from 100,000 people watching them die....regardless of whether or not they know that what they're doing is potentially fatal...the kids attending the show don't know that.

I don't think that the FAA is going to do squat about it. Like you said, they expect these types of things. I just think that, at some point, air shows in general will become a little bit less of a family activity when parents believe that it's a 50/50 shot that their kid is going to witness an airplane slamming into the ground and turning into a fireball.

Watch this video of the Kansas City crash. Seconds after the crash (at 4:30 in the video) there is a kid pleading with his dad to go home because he just witnessed a horrific airplane crash and watched somebody die. Great family entertainment right there.
 
jason said:
Really? I mean, really? I should quit flying because I think that people falling out of the sky may have a negative impact on the public perception of aviation? Wow. What does me flying have to do with any of this? My only comment is that we're to the point that loops and rolls aren't enough. I know that these performers know what they're getting themselves into. But the people attending aren't going to the show expecting to watch somebody die. At some point, the performers are going to have to realize that the need to "kick it up a notch" isn't worth the damage that will result from 100,000 people watching them die....regardless of whether or not they know that what they're doing is potentially fatal...the kids attending the show don't know that.
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Very true.

A couple of years ago we saw the Snowbirds perform at Wings over Pittsburgh. Lots of graceful, tight coordination stuff that was very impressive and far lower key than Blue Angels of Thunderbirds.

IIRC Sean Tucker was at that same show a bit earlier. Watching all those headache-makers was impressive, but I wondered who in this mass of humanity thought that was more awesome than the loops, rolls, and low-level stuff that we all know is "easier"?

IOW, does it have to be "more dangerous" each year? Or can it be the same stuff each year?
 
jason said:
Watch this video of the Kansas City crash. Seconds after the crash (at 4:30 in the video) there is a kid pleading with his dad to go home because he just witnessed a horrific airplane crash and watched somebody die. Great family entertainment right there.
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Probably wanted to get home so he could play his video game were he kills people. :rofl::rofl:
 
jason said:
Really? I mean, really? I should quit flying because I think that people falling out of the sky may have a negative impact on the public perception of aviation? Wow. What does me flying have to do with any of this? My only comment is that we're to the point that loops and rolls aren't enough. I know that these performers know what they're getting themselves into. But the people attending aren't going to the show expecting to watch somebody die. At some point, the performers are going to have to realize that the need to "kick it up a notch" isn't worth the damage that will result from 100,000 people watching them die....regardless of whether or not they know that what they're doing is potentially fatal...the kids attending the show don't know that.

I don't think that the FAA is going to do squat about it. Like you said, they expect these types of things. I just think that, at some point, air shows in general will become a little bit less of a family activity when parents believe that it's a 50/50 shot that their kid is going to witness an airplane slamming into the ground and turning into a fireball.

Watch this video of the Kansas City crash. Seconds after the crash (at 4:30 in the video) there is a kid pleading with his dad to go home because he just witnessed a horrific airplane crash and watched somebody die. Great family entertainment right there.
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"Faster, lower, hairier" has been around since the first time people paid to watch someone fly. Underpowered, badly rigged aircraft being forced to do things outside their design envelope, by pilots who had no idea what they were doing. Wingwalkers with no safety gear, aerobatics without parachutes... hell, pilots used to intentionally crash their aircraft in order to entertain crowds. Back then, if you didn't scare the hell out of everyone in attendance, you went out of business quickly. Beauty and precision have always had a place in airshows, but nothing keeps them coming back like a little danger. That hasn't changed.

It's gotten better, in terms of the culture of safety and the accident rate... precautions have kept up with the expansion of the performance envelope, as with all motorsports. But it's still extreme flying, with narrow margins. Since the beginning, parents who bring their kids to airshows and try to pretend the risk is not real have been fooling themselves as they try to fool their kids.

Every summer, I read the same damn posts: "Bad summer for aviation... why is this happening... another one gone... cursed airshow families... if this goes on... oh gloom and doom, etc"... it's summer, folks, and the accident figures spike every year because there's more flying going on. It's airshow season, both official and- cough- unofficial. But the vast majority of flights this summer were wildly successful, and nobody got hurt. That is what's really important!

Not saying we should just finish our corndogs and say "bring on the next daredevil!" when something like this happens, but it's certainly nothing new, and the only thing the world's aviation authorities can do to stop airshow accidents is to ban airshows. Same goes for the amateurs that get killed every summer. No flying= no flight mishaps. We say accidents are unacceptable, but weighed against no flying at all, well... :dunno:
 
jason said:
At some point, the performers are going to have to realize that the need to "kick it up a notch" isn't worth the damage that will result from 100,000 people watching them die....regardless of whether or not they know that what they're doing is potentially fatal...the kids attending the show don't know that.
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When do you suppose that is going to happen?

Lots of lessons learned over the past 100 years that are still being re-learned today.

Just look at the C-17 crash last year. It was Bud Holland re-visited.

Just another example of kicking it up a notch and killing people......but it keeps happening over and over again.
 
As has been pointed out elsewhere (ANN?), there hasn't been an air show death of a spectator in the US since the mid-1950s.
 
Everyone needs to take a big gulp of the "**** Happens" cool-aid. I was at a party a few months ago and everyone there was telling me to sell my motorcycle because they are "too dangerous". I am sad to say 2 people at that party have since been diagnosed with very serious cancer.

We all will die, and after we do the world will mostly go on just as it did before. What we do in our lives is what matters, not what we avoid doing out of fear. If we had our heads screwed on straight those kids would remember the bravery and the spirit of the individuals rather than be terrified by their death or injury.

While it may be true that the death of a show participant may shock some, if you remove that risk, nobody will go to the show... it would be like an auto race where the cars don't go fast. The courage to face the risk and the skill to minimize it is what makes it so compelleing.
 
psachseJr said:
While it may be true that the death of a show participant may shock some, if you remove that risk, nobody will go to the show... it would be like an auto race where the cars don't go fast. The courage to face the risk and the skill to minimize it is what makes it so compelleing.
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Disagree. At most airshows, I may watch 10% of the flying stuff. The rest of the time, I'm too busy looking at the static displays.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Disagree. At most airshows, I may watch 10% of the flying stuff. The rest of the time, I'm too busy looking at the static displays.
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While that may be true of the pilot population (who are also the population of the show-goers who understand the risk, and the reward for the performers), I think the majority of the general population doesn't go for the displays, but rather for the flying (read: exciting/thrilling) portion.
 
jason said:
Really? I mean, really? I should quit flying because I think that people falling out of the sky may have a negative impact on the public perception of aviation? Wow. What does me flying have to do with any of this?
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Ok, take off your "BellyUpFish is trying to flame me goggles" and reread my post. My "you" is a general "you."

Everyone gets all up in arms when there is an airshow crash. "THIS IS GOING TO BE HORRIBLE FOR AVIATION!"

Um. Well. No. Insert my NASCAR analogy here.

My only comment is that we're to the point that loops and rolls aren't enough.
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I guess it depends on who you are. Watching a man move from a Stearman to a Hughes/Schweizer is most likely the time I'd pick to go grab a boigah.

But the people attending aren't going to the show expecting to watch somebody die.
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I dunno, I keep hearing that's what people go to airshows for. The imminent death.

jason said:
Watch this video of the Kansas City crash. Seconds after the crash (at 4:30 in the video) there is a kid pleading with his dad to go home because he just witnessed a horrific airplane crash and watched somebody die. Great family entertainment right there.
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I have to wonder if the kids reaction is due to the crash or the adults reaction to the crash.

Horrific airplane crash to you and I and an airplane hitting the ground to what sounds like a 7-10 year old is very different.

Death is a very hard thing for young children to understand. They just, well, don't understand it. My uncle passed away and my cousin kept asking "when his dad was coming home." We had to explain to him. I doubt very seriously the kid understood a man just died in that. His father didn't seem to understand a man just died in that, with all his "WHERE ARE THE FIRETRUCKS?? WHERE IS THE AMBULANCE??" stuff. What's even better is that while the kid is begging to go home, his own father just tells him it's ok and that's that. If you notice, the kid says nothing else.


dmccormack said:
A couple of years ago we saw the Snowbirds perform at Wings over Pittsburgh. Lots of graceful, tight coordination stuff that was very impressive and far lower key than Blue Angels of Thunderbirds.
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Could the "amount of key" in the Snowbirds show have anything to do with the amount of racket coming from the aircraft? The CT-114 is no where near as noisey as the 18 or 16. Kinda like Franklin's Waco. It was obnoxiously loud, yet flew a very graceful show.

Watching all those headache-makers was impressive, but I wondered who in this mass of humanity thought that was more awesome than the loops, rolls, and low-level stuff that we all know is "easier"?
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I would bet the general public found the Tucker show much more "Wow, Tom, lookie there!"

Or can it be the same stuff each year?
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Fearless Tower said:
Just look at the C-17 crash last year. It was Bud Holland re-visited.
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I don't think it's quite fair to compare the C-17 issue to Bud Holland. Bud Holland had an issue and OFTEN pushed the B-52 much farther than he should. Crews refused to fly with him.

Have you heard the CVR from that crash? Very chilling.

psachseJr said:
Everyone needs to take a big gulp of the "**** Happens" cool-aid. I was at a party a few months ago and everyone there was telling me to sell my motorcycle because they are "too dangerous". I am sad to say 2 people at that party have since been diagnosed with very serious cancer.
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Yeh, this.

I'm on another messageboard and there waaay overly heated debate on whether or not Pit Bull's should be allowed to exist. I think 23 people were killed by Pit's in 2010.

Something like 150,000 people died from lung cancer alone last year. We've not banned cigarettes.
Something like 32,000 people died from car wrecks in 2009. We've not banned cigarettes.
Something like 35,000 people die from cirrhosis of the liver each year. We've not banned alcohol.
 
jason said:
The only thing that gets me about these types of things are that airshows are the ONE THING that draws the masses to aviation. If the performers have to push the bounds to the limit that it starts raining airplanes and performers, it just ends up confirming whatever preconceptions the general public has about aviation being dangerous and that "somebody needs to do something to stop this".
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Other way around. It's like going to the races vs watching people drive down the highway, you're more likely to see wrecks. Humans have a curiosity about death, and it has always been an element in our entertainment in any culture you can find. People come to airshows because "You could get killed doing that". If they thought GA posed the same risk, they'd be hanging out at the airport every weekend.
 
Henning said:
Other way around. It's like going to the races vs watching people drive down the highway, you're more likely to see wrecks. Humans have a curiosity about death, and it has always been an element in our entertainment in any culture you can find. People come to airshows because "You could get killed doing that". If they thought GA posed the same risk, they'd be hanging out at the airport every weekend.
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I've seen more people die in the interstate than I have at airshows.. :D
 
Henning said:
Other way around. It's like going to the races vs watching people drive down the highway, you're more likely to see wrecks. Humans have a curiosity about death, and it has always been an element in our entertainment in any culture you can find. People come to airshows because "You could get killed doing that". If they thought GA posed the same risk, they'd be hanging out at the airport every weekend.
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I may be deluded but I think more highly of people than that they come in hopes of seeing someone get hurt or killed. I think there's a fascination with watching someone demonstrate skill and "nerve", for lack of a better word, when the stakes are very high. The masses don't have a clue about the skill their witnessing but they know it must be great because they've never seen an airplane do that before. So air show flying should be all about the perception of danger and there should be much less of the real danger stuff.

But sadly, some pilots accept more real danger/risk thinking that'll put them at the next level and I personally think that's foolish. A tumble done at 1200 feet is just as entertaining as one done at 800 ft. The 1200' tumble is two mistakes high and the one at 800' is only one mistake high before the dirt dive. There's no reason for any air show performer to execute a maneuver that, if not done right, kills them. Accepting extreme risk in defense of our country is one thing. To get people at an air show to stare for 12 minutes - no way. No one in the audience is keen enough to notice how close they're cutting it and the really experienced guys in the audience know you're an idiot for risking it. But I've seen it several times in the last few years that the old gray beard air show guys will say "that guy is an accident waiting to happen" because they were cutting all their margin - and then within a year or two they were gone. The real pros that have been around a long time practice a maneuver up high hundreds, maybe thousands of times before they bring it down to air show altitudes. By then, they know every way it can go wrong and know what altitude and airspeed gate they need to hit before they pull the trigger on it. Do some pilots take short cuts? What do you think?

There's a process in place that's supposed to police the quality of who gets surface level waivers and who gets to keep them. The FAA assigned that responsibility to ICAS and created ACE's (aerobatic competency evaluators). Is that process working well enough? Again, what do you think?
 
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PittsDriver said:
I may be deluded but I think more highly of people than that they come in hopes of seeing someone get hurt or killed. I think there's a fascination with watching someone demonstrate skill and "nerve", for lack of a better word, when the stakes are very high. The masses don't have a clue about the skill their witnessing but they know it must be great because they've never seen an airplane do that before. So air show flying should be all about the perception of danger and there should be much less of the real danger stuff.

The real pros that have been around a long time practice a maneuver up high hundreds, maybe thousands of times before they bring it down to air show altitudes. By then, they know every way it can go wrong and know what altitude and airspeed gate they need to hit before they pull the trigger on it. Do some pilots take short cuts? What do you think?

There's a process in place that's supposed to police the quality of who gets surface level waivers and who gets to keep them. The FAA assigned that responsibility to ICAS and created ACE's (aerobatic competency evaluators). Is that process working well enough? Again, what do you think?
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1, Yes, you are deluded...:D Mankind is a basal creature regardless what our pretensions of ourselves may be. The difference between Perception of Danger and Danger is not a clearly defined one though. That is what we actually do in performances like this is to stretch beyond the audiences consideration of danger without dying. Aerobatic acts have been hawked as "Death Defying" since the very beginning. Aerobatics is a competition of Man and Machine vs. Death. It's not the only reason we go, many people will have various reasons they go, but this is the reason they all have in common. I was at an Airshow in Aus where a slip was a maneuver:rolleyes: (Seriously, this was the level of "act". The only guy who did some flying for real stuff was the guy in the Tiger Moth who tossed out the roll of toilet paper to see how many times he could cut the streamer, and he didn't chase it within a few hundred feet of the ground.) The crowd for that airshow was shall we say, unprofitable. The further we push our act towards killing ourselves, the higher our revenues get... We reward great skill when it puts on a great show, and there is a difference in 800' and 1200' when it comes to what people can see. People will reward you for the better view, they like it. Thing is you have eliminate the possibility for error AND survival so the likelihood of dying goes up considerably. BUT, that is the performers choice to make. They are betting that they don't screw it up and die. They hedge their bet with a lot of practice and usually win their bet. But, as with all other gambles, in the long run, the house always wins.

2. Do people take shortcuts at this? Of course, but not for long. There is a factor though that by the time in your life that you're getting really good at it, you can't take it physically anymore. Most people don't realize just how brutal and wearing on your body high G flying is. Most pilots you pull a proper 60* bank level turn, and they start freaking out over 2gs.

3. Surface waivers... I don't think it's too bad. You have to balance the death toll against the receipts. You don't want too many people getting killed, but you don't want none either because you'll destroy the industry.
Ever seen 250,000 spectators at an aerobatic competition that had a 1500' floor?

My observation this year has been I've seen them operating further into worsening weather than I have before.
 
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Henning said:
1, Yes, you are deluded...:D
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I've come to accept that some of that is good for me :)

2. Do people take shortcuts at this? Of course, but not for long.
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That's a problem though. ICAS has been given the responsibility of policing itself. A low level waiver is something that has to be renewed every year with an ACE. I have to wonder if there are some ACEs that have the attitude "if that wants to push it, it's his life" which overall I'm arguing is ultimately bad for the business. I may think that though because I have more faith in humanity than created the gladiator games. I'm not an ACE and won't ever be but if I were, it would be my personal goal that no one I ever signed off died in a performance. Like I said before, it's not like we're defending a nation here with this stuff.

NASCAR - I don't know if they've got it right or not but certainly a lot of what the fans hear and know is all about the safety features of the sport - HANS, restrictor plates, etc. Way fewer people get killed in NASCAR than the air show biz and yet they're attracting massive audiences that actually pay to get in to see it.

3. Surface waivers... I don't think it's too bad.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm all for doing dangerous looking stuff a foot off the deck. It's the air show pilots job to give the impression of danger, precision, and skill in extreme flying. There's a long standing debate on the reverse half cuban. In a half cuban, you fly down the in front of the crowd in level flight and pull up through 5/8ths of a loop which puts you on an inverted 45 degree line back toward the ground. You can easily judge your recovery altitude loss and do so a few feet off the deck by how long you draw that 45 line. In a reverse half cuban, you fly down in front of the crowd and pull up to a 45 line, roll inverted, and then pull through 5/8ths of a loop recovering back to level right above the ground. Both maneuvers make a lot of smoke and noise and have the airplane doing high energy stuff right on the deck but one is much safer than the other. In the reverse half-cuban, there's a point when you've directed your energy back toward the ground in the looping portion where you're committed to a big altitude loss. Low level acro guys have altitude/speed gates and know not to pull the trigger and yet, this maneuver gets somebody every couple of years. If you start the looping portion too low, you're dead. So, does the crowd get more excited when you do the reverse half cuban?

I wouldn't advocate against reverse half cubans but if I were an ACE and saw my guy do one with no margin (an elliptical or egg shaped looping portion builds in margin) I'd probably bust his tail and tell him if I saw it again, I'd pull his card. Why, because more real risk was created where nobody cares or appreciates the difference.

Hey, stuff breaks and pilots fail so there are always going to be accidents in air show flying. I totally get the notion of the adrenalin rush and the thrill of testing my skill vs my mortality. I've spent my life turning dead dinosaurs into fun racing motorcycles, cars, and flying acro. But you know what, I think acro is the most dangerous looking, but can be the safest of those activities. It's all about how to manage the risks of pushing myself and the machine. For any maneuver that has any inherent degree of uncertainty, I fly two mistakes high. An inverted pass down the runway doesn't have much uncertainty because a pilot has rolled or pushed up out of it a million times and knows there's no altitude loss every time. So fine, do it at 20' AGL. A tumble needs a couple of mistakes of altitude under it. Anything less is just irresponsible for my own safety and the good of the sport.
 
I don't know about the shows being more dangerous lately.

It seems there are wider tolerances between head-on runs (using angles to make it looks closer than it is, etc) with the Blue Angles and Thunderbirds than I remember in the F-4 days...

One of the most impressive acts at Wings over Pittsburgh was Manfred Radius flying his glider. But is was such a long and quiet act (with Mozart playing on Air Show speakers) that most folks appeared to lose interest after the third loop.

It's easy for pilots to scoff at those "blood thirsty rednecks," but 80% of the folks drawn to air shows are enjoying the sights and sounds of impressive machinery (that in many cases they have paid for) close-up and personal.

From my limited sample, I'd argue the the biggest crowd reactions come after high speed fly overs.
 
PittsDriver said:
That's a problem though. ICAS has been given the responsibility of policing itself. A low level waiver is something that has to be renewed every year with an ACE. I have to wonder if there are some ACEs that have the attitude "if that wants to push it, it's his life" which overall I'm arguing is ultimately bad for the business.

I'm not an ACE and won't ever be but if I were, it would be my personal goal that no one I ever signed off died in a performance. Like I said before, it's not like we're defending a nation here with this stuff.
Click to expand...

I think the airshow industry in general has done a pretty good job of balancing the risk against public safety, we aren't seeing collateral injuries in these airshow accidents, so I think a fair enough balance of assumption of risk on the part of the pilot and public safety has been reached. I'm not seeing any major deficiencies in the system or any obvious mismanagement of the shows from the limited perspective I have. He wanted to put on a show and he understood the risk and was compensated for it (These guys get paid right?) He didn't hurt anyone else in the process either soooo. I think it meets the standards of our society as "a sad accident".

I don't disagree that we should re-evaluate if we are "pushing envelopes" too far, but I think we should look at all the factors involved including environmental and get a better picture of which envelopes are getting pushed to far. It may turn out to be a combination of several that combined are biting us and removing one element will bring some resolution. Then you have to decide which element to remove.

If you are going to require a "safety factor" on maneuvers, how do you determine what safety factor is appropriate? It's really a tough call.

In the end though, I think the ACE's responsibility is to the crowd, not the pilot. He is there to determine if the Crowd is safe, not the pilot.

BTW, the reason NASCAR does better than Airshows is the competition factor. That's a big draw. They aren't a bunch of ***** dilettante pilots playing with themselves....:rofl:;)
 
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