The Red Arrows
Founded in 1964, the Red Arrows is the common name for the Aerobatic Team of the Royal Air Force. The team consists of nine BAE Hawk aircraft, with a tenth always carried to events as a backup.
The ten craft are found neatly lined up on one of Blackpool airport’s runways. They now perform nearly every year at Blackpool, and are famed for their 9-plane diamond formation.
All of the pilots are volunteers, and only serve a three year term of duty - as such there are always three new pilots each year. The pilots will all have seen frontline RAF duty, and have had 1500 flying hours.
According to Wikipedia:
The Red Arrows have no reserve pilots, as a spare pilot would not perform often enough to fly to the standard required. If one of the pilots is not able to fly, the team flies an eight-plane formation. However, if the Team Leader, ‘Red 1′, is unable to fly then the team does not display at all.
At the Red Arrow’s base, at RAF Scampton in Linconshire, another of the distinctive red planes is sitting on the tarmac by the hangars.
Meanwhile, a Folland Gnat, the aircraft the Red Arrows used before the Hawk, is on the grass and now acts as a gate guard for the base.
It is not unusual for British residents to see the Red Arrows fly past on their way to an event, as they generally travel at around 1000 feet to avoid the clouds or straying into flight paths.
More info on the Red Arrows can be found at their official site, and of course at Wikipedia. There is also a brilliant flickr photo pool of the team in action.
See our previous post, Planes Taking-off in Formation, for some possible sightings of other countries’ aerobatic display teams.
Thanks: JosieNorden, Ollie Miller and Rob H.
The Yankee equivalent are the US Navy Blue Angels. There summer home is in Pensacola, FL. Looks like a couple of their jets are there “now.”
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Their winter home is in El Centro, CA. None are to be found, however.
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Where, oh, where, could the Blue Angels be? In the Wild Blue Yonder?
What’s this piece of high-tech British aeronautical engineering over at Blackpool?
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Just looking around the area. Pensacola is very pround of their Blue Angels. I thought for a minute they were so proud they had blue roofs.
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Then I realized that these are just the infamous FEMA blue tarps have covered so many (and still do to my understanding) homes after roof repairs from the 2005 hurricanes.
Wow, koen, I don’t know what that is, but it sure looks massive.
That plane in Blackpool looks like an Avro Vulcan.
Ah yes, one of the few remaining Vulcans! This one actually has an interesting story, and I was debating with myself whether to digress so far as to include it in the post - it was sold on eBay and made quite a high amount, but the buyer declined to take it as it was found to be in too poor a condition, I think.
Certainly an interesting design!
And what could this be: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth The world’s largest heating system?
I remember seeing the Red Arrows over my home in England during the Stoneleigh Town & Country Festival. They have coloured smoke to make shapes! I remember one year when they made a heart.
I was going to buy that Vulcan - at one time the fella only wanted a quid for it because no one wanted it.
After weighing up that it wouldn’t fit on a roof rack, where i was going to keep it and how much it would cost to keep it somewhere and the fact (as Rob points out) that it would fall to pieces if you moved it, made it seem like less of a bargain.
Here is one more at RAF Scampton.
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In Pensacola, a nice collection of planes including a few old Blue Angels…
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and at the base as well…
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I live in Lincoln, a few miles away from RAF SCampton, and here we see the red arrows practicing very often. It’s always good to see them on a sunny day practicing next to the cathedral on the sky line.
going back to the red arrows has anyone seen the hawk on static display on the sea front by the second pier at blackpool.
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Here is a Red Arrow (/a) near BAe in Hampshire, this one was painted by my grandfather!
There is going to be a great airshow in hampshire in july. Its called wallop 08 and features many of the best flying displays in the Uk including the blue eagles