Thanks, jlittle2. Energy management as a safety factor is something mostly misunderstood when regarding airshows (races are, again, subject to specific different factors also.) For instance aircraft flying over the crowd don't worry me, but when their energy is directed towards the crowd, there's a greater risk, and that flight direction is sometimes unavoidable; therefore removing other risk factors is desirable there - for instance not having jet crossovers arrowing towards the crowd.
JDK wrote:
This is exactly the kind of attitudes I'm trying to find data to address - as we all should - thanks for raising it Muddy.
ZRX61 wrote:
muddyboots wrote:
It's all about perception, and a big engine with a buzz saw attached to it is going to get lots more attention (no matter how true) than a car. Everybody drives cars. They aren't scary, unless a teenager (or maybe Eric) is behind the wheel. We're used to cars. But you don't see a thousand airplanes zipping around all day with very few accidents. However, it seems like almost every time you see an airplane in the news or on TV...it's spiraling into the ground with a bunch of nuns tied to the wings, and there's a busload of challenged children singing "jesus loves me" in its trajectory. I mean, it's all about perspective and perseption, you know?
The last big loss of spectator life at a car race (IIRC) was LeMans in '55(?) when the engine of a car that had just wrecked went thru the crowd at head height with fairly predictable results. Something like 80 deaths & in the video I saw there's a rather gruesome sound not unlike someone smashing cabbages with a large mallet..
Mass fatalities have been more recent at airshows (Rammstein etc)
The last injuries to a spectator at a UK air show was the DH110 accident with John Derry in 1952 -
1952! I know 'no accident' is no news, but that's an enviable safety record, and one that can be matched by taking the same precautions as the UK requirements.
Ramstein also wasn't recent - 1988. Subsequent airshow accidents where the public have been injured have, AFAIK, occurred in countries with a limited airshow array and experience, including on the continent. (EDIT: Ukrane, 81+ killed in 2002, Germany; 1 killed, 2008 - given their relatively low number of air events, it's interesting that having more airshows is therefore literally safer than having a few...)
From the Ramstein and Derry accident, the lessons can (and have, in most places) be learned and minimise the chance to near-zero of them happening again. The airshow environment has also changed utterly since 1952 and 1988 as well - just take a look at the safety features in cars of those eras compared to today as a rough example. I don't know what the US safety record is like, again, the cardinal rule of not killing the public seems to have been held.
Just looking at the info on that 1955 Le Mans crash. The
reaction is interesting.
Quote:
After the race, an official inquiry into the accident ruled that Jaguar was not responsible for the crash, and that it was merely a racing incident. The death of the spectators was blamed on inadequate safety standards for track design, leading to a ban on motorsports in France, Switzerland, Germany, and other nations until the tracks could be brought to a higher safety standard. Switzerland's ban allowed for the running of timed motorsports such as hillclimbs, yet banned sport which allowed two cars to compete alongside one another. This forced swiss racing promoters to organize circuit events in foreign countries like France, Italy and Germany. In June 2007 the Swiss government lifted the ban on racing.[1]
After winning also the last major race of the 1955 season, the Targa Florio, Mercedes-Benz announced that they would no longer participate in factory sponsored motorsport in order to concentrate on development of regular cars. The self-imposed ban on circuit racing lasted until the 1980s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1955_Le_Mans_disaster
What, if anything, would prevent airshows being banned in a country in the event of a spectator-killing accident? (IIRC, the Ramstein accident resulted in an airshow ban in Germany).
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