Kiwi Red 1988 Wellington Display on YouTube!

[Dave Homewood]

have a look at this



then



then



then

[corsair67]

Dave, thanks for posting those links.

Interesting to watch some of the other videos posted by the same person about Graham Carter's accident: some very knee-jerk reactions there.

Was there a shortage of Kiwi reporters on NZ TV in the late eighties, as there seemed to be a few too many North American accents in the Graham Carter stories?

[Dave Homewood]

I have just watched the reports you refer to. I had seen the first one before when it happened and I have it on tape somewhere incidentally.

However I had never seen that third report. The 'revelation' that the 1988 team also had a 'near disastrous' collision was new to me. The two aircraft apparently touched mid-air and landed safely. No damage then? This actually does happen in formation practices whe you have high precision teams and the fact that the pilots were skilled enough to avoid tragedy says it all!

The rest of the report is outragious , the reporter was blatantly trying to dig for some sort of scandal after the crash by the looks of it. Why mention the RNZAF flies old jets? Actually post-Kahu they were pretty much new jets. However I don't think the team was flying post-Kahus, but the whole lot were soon to be converted over.

Why mention they don't have a big budget for the team's schedule? They were doing it and obviously could afford it or they wouldn't do it. There's no issue then.

Why mention most of the pilots had left the RNZAF? Was he implying that those left including Carter were the bottom of the barrel? I bloody hope not.

He used that media word "stunts"

He also made an issue that they were not full time aerobatic team pilots, but instead just combat pilots. What does that matter? Frontline pilots, I would imagine, would be sharper and more instinctive I reckon than those who fly the same routine every day and nothing else.

I have never been trilled by a Blue Angels or Thunderbirds display. In fact I have heard a lot about the Thunderbirds being the most boring display team there is. Kiwi Red were simply fantastic considering they had all the odds against them.

Worst of all was showing a clip from the Rammstein disaster as if it had relevance in this case, which it did not. I thought journalism had slipped badly lately but it seems it was just as bad 18 years ago.

And that reporter John Herrington sounded like Stephen Hawking's robot voicebox!

[Dave Homewood]

Mind you, boy oh boy, that flypast at the end of the last report brought a tear to the eye. The lone Skyhawk flanked by the Strikemasters, a bloody nice touch.

[flyjoe180]

Yes, great videos. Have to agree, the reporting on the A4 accident was a shocker.

[skyhawkdon]

admin said:

The 'revelation' that the 1988 team also had a 'near disastrous' collision was new to me. The two aircraft apparently touched mid-air and landed safely. No damage then?

Two aircraft touched wingtips when practicing for the Bicentennial Airshow in Australia. They were based at Nowra at the time. Both aircraft needed new ailerons and wing tips... and the pilots new flying overalls I suspect! I was on 2 Sqn back at Ohakea at the time and we had to canabalise an aileron off one of our aircraft and send it over to 75 Sqn.

There was also another incident in 1988/89 during a practice at Ohakea which I witnessed first hand. During the opposing dirty barrel roll sequence Nigel Milne actually did a "touch and go" on the runway with his wheels as he completed the roll (he "touched" VERY hard!). He was lucky he was over the runway and not the grass... the aircraft bounced back into the air and he immediately landed having seriously overstressed the aircraft. I think the G meter registered over 8G but all they found damaged was a bent main landing gear axle. He was very lucky. I suspect he went down to the clothing store for a new pair of overalls as well!

[lumpy]

hey Skyhawkdon , do you have any idea what became of Nigel Milne ? We were quite good mates at school ( assuming its the same one ) , the last I heard he was still training on strikemasters ( so yes , that was a loooong time ago ) :-)

[skyhawkdon]

lumpy said:

hey Skyhawkdon , do you have any idea what became of Nigel Milne ? We were quite good mates at school ( assuming its the same one ) , the last I heard he was still training on strikemasters ( so yes , that was a loooong time ago ) :-)

From memory he went to Saudi with BAE in the late 90's to train their pilots. Haven't heard anything more since.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Don, amazing incidents and it goes to show that these things do happen. I recall watching a practice of the Red Checkers, might have been 1992, I don't recall the date, but during the mirror formation they hit an air pocket and touched. When they landed there was a scratch in the bottom one's canopy, and the other's aerial or tail or both had a ding. Scary when you think where the props were at that moment. The fact is, all these guys had luck on their side. Sometimes their luck runs out. The exact same thing could happen in operational flying, and the fact that it happened in a display practice doesn't mean the team shouldn't exist, which seemed to be the tone of that yank reporter.

I really admire the rest of them team for getting back up there and continuing. It shows great strength.

One thing I cannot work out is the reports say the team flew only one display before the crash, the Ohakea 50th. But dates from Mark Roger's (Red Kiwi) great article gives three dates before the crash. Were the reports wrong or did someone else fly No. 4 in the first two?

[lumpy]

Yes , thanks for that Don .Interestingly enough , in this day and age , where you struggle to even get insurance on your turbo car unless you are over 25 , Nigel would have been 23 at the time of the incident you speak of ( give or take a year ) .( but so much more well trained than any car driver ! )

[Dave Homewood]

Gosh, that's a sobering thought Lumpy.