it should help the show run more
smoothly.”
Hopefully, that smoothness will
stem from consistency currently
lacking in rulings and assessments
from the CASA offices, which in
itself is thought to be a result of
a lack of understanding from the
regulator.On the day
CASA’s main focus on the day
of an air show is separation of
crowd and display. That is done
by use of barriers and distance;
fences and a buffer zone that
will protect the paying public
should a display pilot lose
control. One surf through You
Tube will give you any number
of examples of what CASA is
scared of, most famously the
chilling tragedy at Reno in 2011
when a Mustang racer crashed
into the crowd.
No-one ever wants to see a
tragedy like that, Shoreham
or Perth ever again, but are
CASA’s measures putting too
much distance between theentertainment and the audience?
Currently, the air show manual
indicates a distance of 200 metres
between the crowd and the display
line, and in some cases even
further than that.
The result is too often a crowd
who had come to be thrilled
trying to spot black dots in the
distance and asking “why don’t
they come closer?”. They can
rest assured, that if organisers
could get the aeroplanes closer,
they would; often they are as
frustrated as the crowd.
Mark Bright: “CASA is
looking at it purely from a safety
point of view as they always do,
but sometimes I feel they don’t
take into account the calibre of
the pilots that are f lying, which
is frustrating. It comes down to
‘that’s what the regulation states,
so that’s what it’s going to be’.”
But this is a tunnel that has
some light at the end of it.
“We can get display lines closer
now,” Bennet points out. “There’s
a precedent been set with Avalon,
and I’ve started to push it with
CASA. If the aircraft is something
like a World War One aircraft
that does only 80-90 knots, for
example, they’ll let that f ly within
100 metres of the crowd.
“But with a fast jet like a Sabre,
they push it out to around 250
metres.”
It comes down, apparently, to
the speed of the aircraft, and at
Avalon this year, Bennet brought
part of his display into 150 metres.
However, the experience and
standard of the pilot has a big
impact on the safety of the display,
and CASA’s rulings often ignore
the realities of what is and isn’t
safe, running too often for the
comfort zone of over-prescriptive
regulations.
Conversely, a pilot’s
inexperience or even moderate
skill in a particular aeroplane
needs to be taken into account,
and though people like Bennet,
Steve Death and Guy Bourke
spend a lot of their lives f lying
displays, many pilots don’t practice
until the day before the show. In
those cases, it is hard to condemn
CASA’s current approach.“ CASA needs to make it so they’re not
the police and they’re not the opposition.”
AUSTRALIAN FLYING November – December 2017handing the battered pages
back to CASA. One of those
campaigners is Paul Bennet.
“Among the reasons for the
revised manual is the Hawker
Hunter crash in the UK, and
the Grumman Mallard in
Perth,” he says. “That was a
big disaster and they’ve really
looked into that a lot. Reading
between the lines, it seems to
me there was a lot of problems
with the way that application
was assessed.”
In both those accidents,
innocent people who were
not directly involved with the
operation of the aircraft were
killed; the thing that CASA is
most afraid of when it comes to
approving a display. However, the
revised manual appears not to be
simply further turns of screws
that are already tight, but a more
collaborative document, and
some in the industry are looking
forward to it.
Mark Bright: “From what I’ve
seen of the draft, it should give us
a bit more scope. If nothing elseThe book
CASA’s manual Air Displays:
Safety and Administrative
Arrangements –simply known
as the Air Show Manual – is
one of those documents that is
technically “guidance material
only”, but if you want to get your
approval, you’d better consider it
more than “guidance”.
The current manual dates
back to 2010, but there is a new
version coming out that has been
reviewed following the tragic
crash of a Hawker Hunter at an
air show at Shoreham in the UK.
The proposed new Air Display
Administration and Procedure
Manual, still in draft form, has
been written by subject-matter
experts drawn from all of the
CASA regional offices, with the
aim not only of reviewing the old
version, but also incorporating
some new lessons.
At the time of writing, the
draft manual is in the hands
of some experienced air show
campaigners, who will be taking
to it with a red pencil beforePaul Bennet can display his Wolf Pitts best when it’s low to the ground and close to the crowd.46 Airshows