The Red Arrows - what is their purpose?
Discussion
mph999 said:
As has been said ...
This country is going 'to the dogs' as far as I am concerned. Cheating MPs, rioters who behave like animals, political correctness gone mad, I could go on ...
In my mind, one of the few things left about this country which is truly great, is the Red Arrows.
M
The country has apparently been "going to the dogs" since someone invented the phrase "going to the dogs". It isn't.This country is going 'to the dogs' as far as I am concerned. Cheating MPs, rioters who behave like animals, political correctness gone mad, I could go on ...
In my mind, one of the few things left about this country which is truly great, is the Red Arrows.
M
There are plenty of truly great things about this country if you're prepared to open your eyes.
They Red Arrows are still great regardless.
pattyg said:
Firstly, I am a great admirer of theirs and have seen them perform a few times over the years.
I was of course sorry to learn of the death of Flt Lt Egging at the weekend but it's led me to ask the role the Red Arrows play in the RAF.
We are all aware that defence budgets have been cut to the bone so why does the MoD decide to continue to fund an aerobatic display team. I would imagine that The Red Arrows merchandise makes a lot of money and I have no idea if organisers pay for them to display at airshows but these pilots cost the taxpayer millions to train and are risking their lives for entertainment purposes. The same really goes for any airshow the RAF participate in.
Its a sign of the times that if this pilot had been killed in action the media attention and public sympathy would have been a lot less simply because of the celebrity status of The Red Arrows. So maybe The Red Arrows also draw attention away from the very serious role of the RAF?
Hope someone can educate me on how they make millions for MoD coffers.
Shocking. I contend that it is you Sir, who has no purpose.I was of course sorry to learn of the death of Flt Lt Egging at the weekend but it's led me to ask the role the Red Arrows play in the RAF.
We are all aware that defence budgets have been cut to the bone so why does the MoD decide to continue to fund an aerobatic display team. I would imagine that The Red Arrows merchandise makes a lot of money and I have no idea if organisers pay for them to display at airshows but these pilots cost the taxpayer millions to train and are risking their lives for entertainment purposes. The same really goes for any airshow the RAF participate in.
Its a sign of the times that if this pilot had been killed in action the media attention and public sympathy would have been a lot less simply because of the celebrity status of The Red Arrows. So maybe The Red Arrows also draw attention away from the very serious role of the RAF?
Hope someone can educate me on how they make millions for MoD coffers.
Hopefully someone can educate me on how you make millions for the government coffers.
Chrisgr31 said:
Lots of young men will want to sign up to be a pilot and join the Red Arrows.
IIRC a load of pilots currently in training were recently told their services wouldn't be required?I would think the RAF would have an excess of pilot applicants both now and in the forseable future.
The Red Arrows make us feel good about ourselves and being Brits and 'the best'. Can't be quantified in £s terms. Get rid of them would just add to the general 'this country's going down hill' feeling and hurt UK morale - and you might as well turn Buck house into low cost housing, use the tower of London as a storage depot, build on London's parks, etc etc etc.
sharpfocus said:
Shocking. I contend that it is you Sir, who has no purpose.
Hopefully someone can educate me on how you make millions for the government coffers.
Look, as I said I enjoy them as much as anyone...was only asking a question incase the beancounters want to review their position. I do not want them disbanded either as I agree they are a sign of what is great about the UK. Hopefully someone can educate me on how you make millions for the government coffers.
I unfortunately don't make millions for the government but looks like I may make more for them than The Red Arrows do
Because they are one of the very few patriotic symbols of general British awesomeness that we have.
Yes they help promote the UK, the RAF, the Hawk etc. etc. but most of all they are a national institution and one of the few things paid for by your taxes that you can look at and say wow, that was bloody fantastic. When's the last a weekly bin collection made you smile?
There should be a big ring fence put around the arrows (and the BoB flight), because if they go we'll never get them back. (and can we maybe add the Vulcan to the RAF display fleet....go on...please?)
Yes they help promote the UK, the RAF, the Hawk etc. etc. but most of all they are a national institution and one of the few things paid for by your taxes that you can look at and say wow, that was bloody fantastic. When's the last a weekly bin collection made you smile?
There should be a big ring fence put around the arrows (and the BoB flight), because if they go we'll never get them back. (and can we maybe add the Vulcan to the RAF display fleet....go on...please?)
They don't do the displays for free though do they. A mates dad used to be involved in a town carnival and it used to cost £10K back then (10+ years ago) for them to appear!
I'm not saying that covered all their costs but at least it helps.
I think they are great and worth every penny of the tax payers money though
I'm not saying that covered all their costs but at least it helps.
I think they are great and worth every penny of the tax payers money though
They are one of the few things this country has spawned that you can stand and watch time and time again, feeling the lump in your throat grow. You can smell the sense of pride when they fly overhead. I'm with Eric, although I haven't seen as many displays, that they are truly one of the most consistent, inch perfect spectacles you can see in the air.
Who cares what they cost.
Who cares what they cost.
5705 said:
Anyone know why the Black Arrows were disbanded? Were the Red Arrows a more cost-effective replacement?
There were many RAF display teams at one point, most of them unofficial and formed from individual squadrons. In addition to the Black Arrows, there were the Blue Diamonds, The Tigers, The Firebirds, The Red Pelicans, the Meteorites, the Black Knights, Linton Gin, the Blades, Magistrates, the Sparrows, the Redskins, the Poachers, the Skylarks and the Yellowjacks.It might have been getting a bit out of hand.
There is a brief history of most of those here: http://aerobaticteams.net/teams.html
5705 said:
Anyone know why the Black Arrows were disbanded? Were the Red Arrows a more cost-effective replacement?
From the 1920s, it had always been the RAF fighter squadrons which provided the RAF display teams. Each year, a different squadron would be allocated the honour of conducting these displays. This was fine during the era of Gloster Gamecocks, Bristol Bulldogs and Gloster Gauntlets - when fighhters were biplanes and very agile. Display flying was stopped during the war (for obvious reasons) so we missed out an aerobatic teams using Spitfires and Hurricanes.
After the war, the fighter squadrons re-equipped, mainly with De Havilland Vampires and Gloster Meteors. By the end of the 1950s they were flying Hawker Hunters and the "Blue Diamonds" (92 Squadron) and "The Black Arrows" (111 Squadron) performed their aerobatics in blue and black painted Hunters respectively.
In the early 1960s, the Hunter equipped fighter squadrons began re-equipping with the much heavier, faster and more costly English Electric Lightning. For a couple of years there were Lightning display teams, 92 Squadron (again) and also 56 Squadron - "The Firebirds".
However, by the mid 1960s it was clear that the RAF could not afford to use these big and expensive aircraft to equip their main aerobatic display teams and it was decided that smaller training aircraft would be more suitable. For a number of years the Central Flying School (CFS) had operated a team using Jet Provosts (The Red Pelicans) so it was only a bit of a jump to setting up a team using the brand new trainer, the Folland Gnat. The first year (1964) the aircraft were painted all yellow and called "The Yellowjacks". The following year they were repainted red and the rest is history.
Eric Mc said:
For a couple of years there were Lightning display teams, 92 Squadron (again) and also 56 Squadron - "The Firebirds".
I would have loved to have seen those. I love the Lightning, but only have a very vague memory of being very small at an airshow, possibly Church Fenton, and seeing one take off straight up. 
I watched the Red Arrows display over Weymouth last week (2 days before the accident at Bournemouth) but not from the beach with the crowds- I was outside my factory on the Industrial Estate.
Whats their purpose- from my viewpoint I could see people up and down the estate outside their offices/factories watching, Drivers stopped cars to watch, I could see people in the park watching, it was on 3 pages of the paper (in colour no less!), headline on all the posters for weeks beforehand.
I really don't understand questioning "British" features like the RA's, Royal Family etc- they are what make us what we are to the people here and to foreign visitors and cost relatively little.
Frankly I am at a loss to understand why Cameron doesn't take a big red marker to the budget and cross off payments to Europe (just leave before it drags us under) economic aid to countries clearly more well off than us, all the quangos and anything to do with Health and Safety, bring back Common Sense and national identity before the Red Arrows is larger than the front line RAF!!!! (if they aren't already)
Whats their purpose- from my viewpoint I could see people up and down the estate outside their offices/factories watching, Drivers stopped cars to watch, I could see people in the park watching, it was on 3 pages of the paper (in colour no less!), headline on all the posters for weeks beforehand.
I really don't understand questioning "British" features like the RA's, Royal Family etc- they are what make us what we are to the people here and to foreign visitors and cost relatively little.
Frankly I am at a loss to understand why Cameron doesn't take a big red marker to the budget and cross off payments to Europe (just leave before it drags us under) economic aid to countries clearly more well off than us, all the quangos and anything to do with Health and Safety, bring back Common Sense and national identity before the Red Arrows is larger than the front line RAF!!!! (if they aren't already)
scubadude said:
Frankly I am at a loss to understand why Cameron doesn't take a big red marker to the budget and cross off payments to Europe (just leave before it drags us under) economic aid to countries clearly more well off than us, all the quangos and anything to do with Health and Safety
Agreed, but politcians would rather grind the country into oblivion than admit they were wrong. They just hope that when it hits the fan the 'other lot' will be in power.munroman said:
db said:
pablo said:
i would imagine only a small number attend an event purely to see the red arrows and not for other exhibitors
ever noticed that at major airshows the reds are pretty much last to display?as soon as they're done, the crowds start leaving.
doesn't matter what's then displaying, the public saw what they came for.
don't imagine, go see for yourself
Simpo Two said:
db said:
ever noticed that at major airshows the reds are pretty much last to display?
db said:
they are not usually last to display.
OK, I give up."pretty much last" is what i said. as in towards the end, but not the final display.
munroman somehow reinvented "pretty much last" to "usually last"
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