Here we go then, monday morning. By the time I've posted this most people have alreadty had the bad news from their boss or failed utterly to get to work thanks to illness, car reliability, road maintenance, idiot drivers, or simply a desire to avoid monday morning at all. I'm not one for pulling 'sickies' but I know some people do. There used to be a guy at work who always seemed to phone in sick every friday. His boss realised quickly he was getting drunk on thursday evening with a paypacket in his hand. So he got every friday off unpaid, with moday to thursday thrown in as a bonus.

That wasn't me, by the way.

One Of Our Arrows Is Missing

Over the weekend I looked out the back window as I often do when I want to get a breath of fresh air and save myself from tearing my hair out with yet another dispute over who whether me or my computor is in charge. Among the ragged grey and white clouds stretching toward the horizon I could see what looked like a trail of smoke from an air display somewhere. It was a curious omen because I later discovered the tragic news of a Red Arrows aircraft crashing after a display at Bournemouth.

In my younger days the Red Arrows regularly got featured on the annual televised broadcast of the Farnborough Airshow. Raymond Baxter would provide the commentary in perfect queens english and at the end of the show he would say "And here come the Red Arrows..." It was expected. Part of British culture, in a way, but then people were more air-minded back then.

I've only seen the Red Arrows live once during a Great Warbirds display at Wroughton in the nineties. The show had gone quiet and everyone knew they were arriving shortly. I happened to look over my shoulder and they they were, approaching low and fast across the english countryside before blasting overhead barely more two hundred feet over the audience before going into a low level routine that I have to say was incredibly impressive.

Naturally I'm saddened that one highly skilled pilot has lost his life in the entertainment of the crowd and the advertisement of RAF flying skills. Things can happen very quickly in aviation especially when you're in a fast aeroplane. I've been lucky during my flying career. Although I've had close calls here and there, nothing happened that was actually serious. Only once did I wonder if I'd blown it spectacularly but as it transpired I got out of that predicament unscated . For some people though, luck runs out, and as my instructors used to impress upon me at every opportunity, low flying is inherently dangerous. They were right.

Douglas Bader lost his legs before WW2 because he responded to a taunt and disobeyed orders regarding low flying and aerobatics in his Bulldog fighter. It is ironic that someone whose inspirational determination to get back in the cockpit was the result of his own foolishness, but I can't take his personal courage away from him. I also remember a tale about two typhoon pilots who decided to indulge in a mock dogfight during a training mission. Being competitive types, neither would give in, and they ended up chasing each other between trees with engines bellowing, completely unable to grasp the risks they were putting themselves in.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that the pilot at Bournemouth was doing anything foolhardy, being a professional and highly trained air force officer in the modern safety minded world. Flying isn't actually dangerous as such. Rather it's a very unforgiving enviroment when something goes horribly wrong. That so few accidents happen regarding aeroplanes is a testament to the efforts made by authorities, air traffic control, engineers, and those very same pilots themselves to prevent disasters. I remember an in-cockpit film of a test pilot trying out a new helicopter, commenting on why he was constantly looking out the window rather than concentrating on the camera and his commentary. He explained "There are three things I want to take care of. An expensive aircraft, my passengers, but most of all, me."