Nothing escapes the eagle eyes of the Farnborough flying control committee in their eyrie above the airfield's tower; from that lofty viewpoint they hand down a "yea" or "nay" as each pilot puts a display aircraft through its paces.

Stricter than Olympic judges, but without ever issuing a score, the team of test and display pilots watches for the slightest infringement of the rules, the smallest threat to safety. It can call a show pilot to task, and ultimately ban him or her from Farnborough altogether.
"A flight demonstration that impresses me is one that appears to go round on rails," committee chairman Roger Beazley told Show News. "By that I mean that every day the routine will be exactly the same maneuvers in the same bit of sky. These kind of performances make for a safe airshow."

Only once since 1988 has the committee handed out a "red card"-Beazley wouldn't say who, but an F/A-18 was sent home last Farnborough. Another display that kept the committee busy was Yevgeni Frolov, who struggled three nights in a row to validate his thrust-vectoring, cartwheeling and tumbling Sukhoi Su-37 fighter, also in 1996.

Beazley recalls another peril of judging pilots. After watching a very good display by the late Natalya Sergeva in a Sukhoi Su-26, he suggested to a colleague who was going to tell her she was validated that perhaps her routine could be improved by a little tweaking, thus making her display look even better. "He returned a few moments later, very disgruntled, and jabbing his finger at me said, 'Don't ever tell me to go and tell the World Aerobatic Champion how to fly her aeroplane again.' We had a good laugh over this, and from that time on we have been very careful about giving advice to pilots about their display techniques. She was of course flying one of the most brilliant routines we had ever seen."

A graduate of the Empire Test Pilots School at Boscombe Down, Group Captain Roger Beazley CBE AFC FRAes (RAF Retd.) has flown all of the RAF's fast jets over the last three decades including BAC Lightnings, F-4 Phantoms (in which he did a stint of display flying) through to Buccaneer, Jaguar and Tornado aircraft. He was the last CO of Experimental Flying at Farnborough before those operations moved to Boscombe Down in 1994. He became Director of Flying for the British MoD Procurement Executive which meant that he was the regulator for all military research aircraft, and industry wide development and production flying in the UK and for trials aircraft abroad. Beazley's been boss for five Farnboroughs running.

Most of the 13-man FCC team is drawn from the existing SBAC Flying Operations Committee under the chairmanship of Colin Hague, the Chief Test Pilot at GKN Westland. It includes veteran Concorde test pilot Brian Trubshaw.

"The committee doesn't take a vote after each validation flight," Beazley explained. "We've been working together a long time and if something is wrong then it is very obvious and is spotted by everyone. If we have seen something we don't like we invite the pilot to an informal meeting, we get his views and perhaps ask him to modify his routine. All participants, even the Red Arrows, have to go through this validation process."

The flying rules are quite straightforward, with base requirements measured in Minimum Separation Distance (MSD) rather than 'Above Ground Level' (AGL), which converts into obstacle clearance rather than ground clearance. For fixed-wing aircraft the MSD is 100 feet for straight and level flight, 300 feet for other maneuvers, and 500 feet for aerobatics and inverted flight. Rotary wing aircraft get a straight and level MSD of 50 feet, with 100 feet for other maneuvers and 500 feet for aerobatics.

Pilots must fly a minimum of 262 meters from the crowd at Farnborough; the actual display line can be seen on the far side of the runway marked by day-glo orange boards. The maximum speed allowed is 0.95 Mach.

"The FCC has total authority over the airshow once it is running. The participants accept this, and in the event of a minor incident then a quiet word with the pilot is all that is needed," Beazley said.

"We are on the pilot's side. They are often under great pressure to show off their aircraft to the best of its ability, and sometimes need a sympathetic ear to confide in. Briefing and de-briefings are always private, with no 'company men' present," he added.

By Mike Vines