Crash at Shoreham Air show

[Truckosaurus]

MarkwG said:

Frankly that's a pretty disgusting allegation: I know the family of one of the victims who might be who you're referring to, & nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed. 'Cheapskate' is probably the wrong word to use. There's always those with local knowledge who know where they can get a good view of the show for free.

I live within walking distance of a number of popular unofficial viewing points for the Farnborough airshow, some up by the fence within feet of people who have paid big money to be there.

Of course, since the Shoreham crash they've curtailled the public days and made efforts to block access to the ad-hoc viewing areas.

[CanAm]

President Merkin said:

Possibly, That whole thing is a legacy of the aborted Ikea development that morphed into a housing estate. Likely that no matter what the road layout was, a well fuled jet hitting it at speed would have had the same outcome.

Last time I was there, they were constructing more industrial buildings on the north-east corner of the airfield. It was not a pretty sight.

[flatlandsman]

I used to be able to walk up to Waddington to see the planes when the airshow as on, occasionally I would pay to go in, but sometimes I would go up the villages up the hill and walk along the A15 to the landing lights and watch there, it was fun, you got a better view in some ways.

Nothing cheapskate about it, just a perfectly normal way to see something if you are lucky enough to be local, I know there were plenty there who were not, now they might or could be called something!! lol, but I would imagine it would not be allowed now, primarily because that is not an easy road to walk along, and the police would prevent you from doing so no doubt.

[Simpo Two]

flatlandsman said:

I used to be able to walk up to Waddington to see the planes when the airshow as on, occasionally I would pay to go in, but sometimes I would go up the villages up the hill and walk along the A15 to the landing lights and watch there, it was fun, you got a better view in some ways.

You could also do that at Duxford in the 90's; there was a road south of the runway which the display aircraft flew right over. You could also blast up the runway in a TVR, but both things are deemed far too dangerous these days.

[zsdom]

Simpo Two said:

flatlandsman said:

I used to be able to walk up to Waddington to see the planes when the airshow as on, occasionally I would pay to go in, but sometimes I would go up the villages up the hill and walk along the A15 to the landing lights and watch there, it was fun, you got a better view in some ways.

You could also do that at Duxford in the 90's; there was a road south of the runway which the display aircraft flew right over. You could also blast up the runway in a TVR, but both things are deemed far too dangerous these days.

You can still do both, an Aston Valkerie hit 200mph at a public event at Sywell aerodrome last year

As for naughty fields, every event has them, I personally used to frequent Duxfords fields opposite the venue til Shoreham(Sept 2015 was my last Duxford field visit) I saw what could happen if things went tits up & didnt feel comfortable or enjoy going anymore

[aeropilot]

zsdom said:

I personally used to frequent Duxfords fields opposite the venue

So did I, back in the mid 90's for the first few Legends, with the sun behind you, you could get some cracking photos......from within the display effectively, like this......not many people doing this in those days.



By the early 2000's and the especially after the Firefly crash into the field just south of the road, things changed...and understandably given the large increase in numbers gathering there. When it was 20 or so photographers scattered around in ones and twos it wasn't so bad, but, when its several hundreds gathered in large clusters, not so good.

In fact, I can remember before the first Legends took place, so maybe 90/91, going past Duxford en-route to somewhere in Cambridge on the day of the old Autumn Air Day end of season show in October, and thinking, oh, I've got an hour or so spare, and just driving around through the village and up along the south road, over the M11, and being able to park up on this track off the road and watch the display! Used to be half a dozen cars parked up on this track in those days. No Police patrols in those days!

[flatlandsman]

I think once the shows are up and running you could park up fairly close in most shows, even the really big ones, plod knew the likely places it might cause trouble so would usually either stick a special up there ior close that road, but it was fine otherwise.

[yellowjack]

aeropilot said:

So did I, back in the mid 90's for the first few Legends, with the sun behind you, you could get some cracking photos......from within the display effectively, like this......not many people doing this in those days.



By the early 2000's and the especially after the Firefly crash into the field just south of the road, things changed...and understandably given the large increase in numbers gathering there. When it was 20 or so photographers scattered around in ones and twos it wasn't so bad, but, when its several hundreds gathered in large clusters, not so good.

In fact, I can remember before the first Legends took place, so maybe 90/91, going past Duxford en-route to somewhere in Cambridge on the day of the old Autumn Air Day end of season show in October, and thinking, oh, I've got an hour or so spare, and just driving around through the village and up along the south road, over the M11, and being able to park up on this track off the road and watch the display! Used to be half a dozen cars parked up on this track in those days. No Police patrols in those days!

That road, parallel to the runway, has been closed during flying displays for some time. Or at least, it was. Only exemptions were the handful of folk living along it or their visitors. I was up there on my bike during the display where the Mustang and the Skyraider collided. I hadn't intended to see an air display but I'd been pootling about on my bicycle and became aware that there was a display going on. So I headed up that way and sat beside my bike on a verge along that road. The collision happened out of sight, and the Mustang went down in a field south of that road at the western end of the airfield. Obviously, with the display now suspended, I decided to get back to my bike ride, and headed west. Only the road was closed near where fire appliances (airport and county) were parked. A motorcycle police officer directed us (I'd joined with a couple of other cyclists by this point) across a field on a track similar to the one where you described parking. We argued that it was private property, but he insisted. Halfway across the field we found the cockpit canopy of the P-51 stood vertically on the front metal "hoop", and in the field were pieces of the aircraft too. I took a photo next to the canopy and then reported it to the police. Within minutes police and firefighters were on the scene assessing, recording, and securing the wreckage. After that, the road was closed to cars but people would park elsewhere and walk to the viewing spot, but the landowner/tenant/farmer got rightly pissed off with folk taking the mickey and trampling over the field instead of remaining on the roadside verges, so I think it is no longer possible to "sneak a peak" from that spot. It definitely wasn't permitted in the years following the Mustang crash.

The MOD put paid to many "free spectator" spots around Farnborough Air Show. The Long Valley Training Area now has a fence and gates around it, where in my early days of living there it was completely unfenced. The organisers also screen the fence along the canal to prevent people from viewing the show up close. There are still decent spots if you know where to go, but they get rarer by the year.

Going back to the days of 'Great Warbirds' displays, I recall a very wet display at North Weald. So bad that we watched the entire display from the front seats of the car which was parked only a few yards back from the barriers separating punters from the live airfield. Again, I've not seen parking allowed so close to the display line for many years.

[aeropilot]

yellowjack said:

Going back to the days of 'Great Warbirds' displays, I recall a very wet display at North Weald. So bad that we watched the entire display from the front seats of the car which was parked only a few yards back from the barriers separating punters from the live airfield. Again, I've not seen parking allowed so close to the display line for many years.

Do you mean Great Warbirds show at West Malling or the Fighter Meets at North Weald...?

I suspect, the former, as indeed the front parking row was facing crowd line and you could watch from the car. First one in '82 was biblically wet, and huge traffic queue to get in. Many shows back then it was possible to do that though. I remember the old Biggin Hill BoB shows in the early 70's were like that, when the car parking and static and crowd lines were on the north side of the runway around the RAF part, not south side as they were in later Biggin Hill Air Fair days in the 80's and 90's.
If you were lucky, you could be parked close to crowd line at Milldenhall as well, and Abingdon.

[Simpo Two]

zsdom said:

You can still do both, an Aston Valkerie hit 200mph at a public event at Sywell aerodrome last year

I guess it depends on the airfield; certainly the Duxford event was closed in the early noughtes citing H&S.

aeropilot said:

In fact, I can remember before the first Legends took place, so maybe 90/91, going past Duxford en-route to somewhere in Cambridge on the day of the old Autumn Air Day end of season show in October, and thinking, oh, I've got an hour or so spare, and just driving around through the village and up along the south road, over the M11, and being able to park up on this track off the road and watch the display! Used to be half a dozen cars parked up on this track in those days. No Police patrols in those days!

That's the one