FighterControl

Droptank wrote:Dear Rogerp.

I decided not to attend the Scampton show in July, immediately following RIAT.

I'm certainly not gloating about that as I, no doubt like many others, would have loved to have had a day or two looking at modern military aviation, demonstrated by the best pilots, coupled with the very special experience of being at the home of the Red Arrows- how could it fail?

I left my decision until after RIAT as I assumed the DBH guys had a whole host of fascinating and unique attendees up their sleeve but didn't announce them as they didn't want to distract attendance of RIAT.

This proved to be unfounded as the lineup changed very little during the time leading up to the show.

Reading through the feedback posted in this forum and after discussions with people who did attend the show, it definitely didn't live up to the expectations everybody had, and wished for, when the show was announced.

If you consider that the show was organised by the team responsible for delivering the world's best airshow, those expectations, quite rightly, were pretty high, particularly as the organisers already have existing relationships with almost every air arm on the planet.

Many posters have said to "give Scampton a break" or "RIAT started slowly like this", well, being an old-time attendee at all the IAT/RIAT shows since 1973 I can assure you IAT DIDN'T start like this!...there was one difference...THEY HAD PASSION!

IAT by its very nature was always a Military show and there was hardly a G-Reg or civil aircraft in sight until the show joined forces in more recent years working in conjunction with Farnborough- remove the civil participation from the 2017 Scampton log and it's a sorry state.

OK, the more unique aircraft are a thing of the past admittedly but there are still plenty of interesting and new aircraft around to attract, even when compared with RAF Cosford show, which has challenges of its own, Scampton fell way short.

The main thread of the feedback on this forum is driven purely by frustration, if you look at the contributing factors to delivering a better Scampton show, it should have been much, much better than it was.

The factors are;-

Best organising team in Europe
Good marketing
Central UK location close to three front-line RAF bases
Years of experience
Home of the Red Arrows
Hundreds of existing military contacts
Good budget availability
Feedback from enthusiasts and general public on social media
New show

The outcome was;-

The show content and flying display was poorly delivered (particularly for the ticket price)
Flying display contingency was non-existent
The catering was poor- even in the premium areas
The traffic management was confusing

These factors are basics that the team has organised so many times in the past that they should have been able to offer a first class experience.

That's what people are commenting on!!!!

I feel sure that when the dust has settled and the coffers counted, the show will be deemed a success and hopefully it will contribute vital funds to the charities it supports.

Sadly that isn't going to drive any change or desire for improvement for next year.


I must draw a parallel with the show at Woodford where I worked closely with the organising team.

They had just five people organising the show, all had other "day jobs" it was held at a factory airfield with a very short runway and limited hardstandings for static, in June (when it seemingly always rained) and a very limited budget availability and in some cases a lack of awareness where the airfield actually was!

The difference was that the show was driven by the passion and trust of the people involved and the maturing relationship with the air arms or civilian organisations operating the aircraft.

EVERY aircraft at Woodford shows (particularly in latter years) was interesting in its own right and on one occasion the ambition of attracting all three national European display teams was achieved (PDF, Reds, Frecce) in addition to many, many firsts such as the Beriev Mermaid debut (despite what IAT claimed), Constellation, US Navy F14/18, Russian Flankers, B1- the list goes on.

So it can still be done, it just depends how high you aim and in the case of the organisers of Scampton air show, I am sure everybody on this forum would like them to aim lot higher.

You also mention that if anybody could do better then "have a go".....OK, I'm up for that even if just on an advisory basis.

Droptank.

SDToone wrote:Hello,
Does anyone know the ID of the Canberra cockpit outside the heritage hangar?
MTIA

Thunder wrote:For those in their mid 40's, what ever happened to the RAF recruitment road show that toured the country in the late 70s early 80s. They used to have a Canberra nose section and a full scale Hawk mock up amongst others, what happened to these?