Red Arrows- Good news thread.

[C24]

1.
Red 6 successfully breaks from formation following bird strike.

2.
Red 6 lands safely and walks away unharmed.

3.
Damaged canopy easily replaced from the Hawk T1 RTP.

4.
Team to continue their display schedule.

5.
Daily Wail has massive drop in sales when reporting this event.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday

[jetranger2015]

Like It!!!

[teeonefixer]

3.
Damaged canopy easily replaced from the Hawk T1 RTP.

Well, not quite:
Cleaning is obvious, the bird remains become a spray that covers and gets behind everything
Removing all evidence of FOD
Extensive airframe and engine examinations for damage
Then, fingers x'd, recover airframe with new canopy

But - we have had aircraft down for months with gouges in the structure from the perspex fragments requiring new tailplane, patch repairs etc.

[FlyingFairy]

Spot on teeonefixer,

From the photos I’ve seen, there is a crease in the starboard fuselage around the cockpit area, the starboard ECU intake has damage, plus there are several damaged blades on the first stage of the ECU caused by ingestion of canopy fragments.

Requires a bit of work, wouldn’t surprise me if it was roaded out.

[Andy_99]

Spot on teeonefixer,

From the photos I’ve seen, there is a crease in the starboard fuselage around the cockpit area, the starboard ECU intake has damage, plus there are several damaged blades on the first stage of the ECU caused by ingestion of canopy fragments.

Requires a bit of work, wouldn’t surprise me if it was roaded out.

I'm sure they might have a spare T1 kicking about that they can swap out with over an extended period,

[teeonefixer]

RAFAT should be in a good position with only flying 7, but they reportedly have suffered "engineering issues" the other day. As for replacement airframes, it takes a lot of work, usually associated with Major servicing, to apply the smoke mod.

[raptor9]

Hell of a good photo of the canopy shattering on Pprune. Amazing pic!.

[zebedee]

That'll be this one... seriously i did a double take when I twigged what had happened... then again when I realised his canopy had gone...

MW

Hawk Birdstrike Rhyl Airshow by Martin Winchester, on Flickr

[matts134]

Extraordinary photo.

[Red-Eye-Knight]

Extraordinary photo.

Agreed quite unbelievably extraordinary.

[bvs]

As for replacement airframes, it takes a lot of work, usually associated with Major servicing, to apply the smoke mod.

I did 2 x smoke mods at Dunsfold in 1985 ish - interesting little job - the original smoke mods were carried out at Bitteswell so we had never done them before.
I loved doing unusual work ,we were doing some War Role (sidewinder) mods at that time + upgrades to some of the nav/radio fit as well as new build aircraft.

[teeonefixer]

The Reds replacement (Post-Mod 2010) airframes were all Majored and Modified at Shawbury until they finally fell out of contract in 2019-ish. They had started XX295 but this was then moved and completed at Valley by Babcocks/HIOS. Mostly re-hashed original parts were required, with tailcones and other parts coming back to Brough (until repairs there ceased).

[bvs]

Mentioning 2010 you just reminded me of an interesting little investigation/rectification job we did at BD,a Hawk not too long out of the 2010 programme came to us for some flying with our based units.It was the a/c fitted with the OLM instrumentation system (I am sure you know the a/c !),anyway during acceptance checks - the rudder system on the fuse spine could not pass rigging checks (quite a bit 'out') and on looking into the problem it transpired that the two 'stainless' rods either side of the GTS Bay had been transposed,so we swapped the rods back to where they should be and readjusted the rudder and T/P rigging - ok !
That a/c ended up flying with the Reds after we had done our bit of flying with it,it certainly kept us fairly busy for a while with various 'snags'.

iirc the 2 rods I mentioned above should have been interchangeable (according to the AP) but obviously were slightly different lengths - how it got past the original techie + counter signature and Independent control checks on the rudder system beats me

[teeonefixer]

aahhhh good old XX319, still going strong with the Reds full time. It was on a round of the units (FRADU, 100 sqn, RAFCAM and RAFAT) collecting flight data when it came to you.
Unusual the rods were different, there is some adjustment at the turnbuckles but not enough to make them rogue?

[bvs]

The rods were different part numbers and one was just too long to be adjustable down to the rudder requirement for rod length,after we swapped the rods it was just a quick twiddle of both sides rod ends and the rest of the rudder system was then easily adjustable to align all rigging fixtures.
I think they were different part numbers but marked in the AP as an alternate part number - which would have worked one way round but not t'other .
I guess during the strip down for 2010 either the rods were inadequately marked as L or R or somebody misread the label for reassembly,or perhaps one of the rods was replaced during major and ''hey we can use this T/P rod because it is an alternate number'' ?

rgds bvs

[Bluerigger1]

Spot on teeonefixer,

From the photos I’ve seen, there is a crease in the starboard fuselage around the cockpit area, the starboard ECU intake has damage, plus there are several damaged blades on the first stage of the ECU caused by ingestion of canopy fragments.

Requires a bit of work, wouldn’t surprise me if it was roaded out.

Looking more likely that roading out is the preferred option. In addition to the wrecked canopy and needing a replacement engine there's damage to the fuselage, wing and fin caused by the perspex shrapnel.

No decisions made yet but either Scampton / Waddington or Valley would be the leading options.

[Supra]

After the 'patchy' display performances on the four days of Bournemouth Air Festival due to Technical & Engineering issues, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to believe there is sufficient 'Good News'to warrant this Topic Thread?
Thursday being Display Day 1 & the Red 6 Jet had to terminate his display due to 'abnormal engine malfunction warnings. He successfully diverted back into Bournemouth with his wing-man in company. The other five jets also cancelled the remaining demonstration & returned to their Bournemouth Airport Base for this show. On Saturday they even had to use a reserve jet without a smoke system to make up the 7-ship display! From the measly 7 jet display earlier in the weekend they could only allegedly muster 6 jets to start the earlier show on Sunday!
Bearing in mind it's only 4 miles 'as the Hawk flies' from Bournemouth Airport to the coastal airshow there really does seem to be little chance of them completing 3 successful days of display flying at Bahrain International Airshow after travelling that far to undertake a five-week multi-Country Middle East Tour. Probably need another 6 beaten & battered Hawks fitted with smoke system, painted Red & air-freighted out there to stand a chance of flying 7 at once! (Could be sea-freight, but likely sink on the way! Without bad luck, they wouldn't have any luck at all?)

[XR221]

In addition to above. Yesterday I was at Old Warden where the Reds were due to do a flypast for the airshow. Shortly before it was due it was announced that unfortunately they’d had to cancel due to bad weather somewhere - fair enough if it was bad weather somewhere. Shortly afterwards I heard the Reds call up on the display frequency to be told ‘there’s a display in progress and we did get the advice of the cancellation and hope to see you another day’, responded with an ‘apology’ by the reds. Then they appeared on the northern horizon flying low from east to west about 5 miles away - just 4 Hawks. Could have done a 4 ship flypast maybe, but probably thought not worth it with just a 4 ship!

[C24]

Good day



Re the above two posts.

viewtopic.php?f=287&t=223428

Always happy to help lost soles

[cat1]

Good news and red arrows do not currently go In the same sentence.