Turning base metals into Gold in Silvertown

Never mind that it's the civil engineering wonder of the 20th century (or that I had a very, very tiny and incidental part to play in the geotechnical engineering of it), or that it has kept Londoners safe from flooding since Oct 1982, the Environment Agency's PR team managed to make the announcement of the annual maintenance of the Thames Barrier sound about as attractive as a damp winter's weekend in Bolton.



Those who'd read the press releases and decided to give it a miss on Sunday 2 October 2016 ought to be kicking themselves.  The elegant curves of the pier roofs, glistening in the autumn sunshine, which dappled the flowing river combined with the lovely surroundings of the Thames Barrier Park and the wavelike topiary of the hedging in its sunken garden, on the north bank in Silvertown, made the whole thing like watching a Sunday cricket match - with the exception that something was happening all the time.

The Barrier is always impressive from the South Side visitor centre, even if the security nazis think anyone with a camera has the faintest interest in what's going on in the control room 30 metres up in the air, way over your left shoulder.



The road less travelled on the north side - there's even a free car park a few metres from the park entrance - at Pontoon Dock (DLR), has a much more interesting view of what the maintenance is really about.  Looking downstream from the London side of the Barrier allows an unobstructed view of the gates coming majestically into their raised positions,



brilliant views of wading birds paddling through the mud at low tide - and of course, it's forever low tide when the Barrier is up.



Then as the main span gates are raised half a metre or so to their underspill position, the accumulated head of water from the downstream Thames roars under the lower lips of the gates through the narrow gap, scouring mud and gravel away from the gate seatings and causing the river to apparently boil in the turbulence.  It's very impressive stuff; it makes quite a noise, oxygenates the water and enables a feeding frenzy for the sea birds whirling and diving above it.



And all this is helped along by the hidden gem that is the Thames Barrier Park cafe.  Lovely staff, providing an endless supply of delicious tea and coffee at reasonable prices, meant that even Granny in her wheel chair was simultaneously fascinated by the hydraulic spectacle, proud of the British engineering skills that made it so and refreshed by the tea.

Book yourself a place for next year - mind you the lovely weather might have played a part in such an enjoyable time.

Three cheers for the Environment Agency and the Port of London Authority; not something I'd dreamed I'd ever be saying, but there it is.

Observations on the RNAS Culdrose 2016 Air Day

With poor weather forecast for over a week, it was with some trepidation that I bowled up at RNAS Culdrose for Arrivals Day.  I hadn't booked an advance ticket as the official Arrivals Day on base had been hiked from £25 to £40 this year, which at a 60% increase certainly didn't produce a 60% increase in value. The weather as forecast, was poor for most of the day and the arrivals only really began trickling in around 14H30 and then in numbers, just as people were being encouraged to leave.

Caught up with an old friend from my youth, who felled me with some terrible news about his health. He was being taken to the show the next day by his granddaughters and he confidently, if stoically, expected it to be his final one.

Air Day itself dawned on 28 July in poor visibility and although it showed signs of lifting during the day, never really improved much.  However, given the forecast, one would have thought alternative arrangements could have been planned.

After years of taking my chances on the crowd line, this year I decided to plump for the Seahawk Enclosure, which was a brilliant call. A large marquee, with a few tables and chairs, an attended pay bar with an adjacent grandstand and portaloos, all in a prime location meant many of the discomforts were removed at a stroke.

Went to photograph the static display in the mist and ended up getting lost, after I'd been coming here since 1972.

Even if you could find the display,

once again, the barriers around some of the static aircraft were far too close.

Just for once, please rein in the lust for Mammon through the commercial pitches and move them all back a bit ?

With a set of misty and rather unsatisfactory pictures, I collected the pre-booked picnic lunch; it was very good and we made our way to the grandstand seating, which gave an elevated view around the base.  Not that much could be seen though; even the seagulls were walking.




Rather like Kenneth Wolstenholme and football, George Bacon is an institution amongst air show commentators. After his upbeat welcome and assurances that all would be well, his incessant chatter was broken by an interview with Rear Admiral Keith Blount who gave an informative, inspiring and uplifting view on the future of Naval Aviation.

The flying started badly when the Belgian F-16s cancelled and continued directly to Spain.  This rather set the pattern for the day and it wasn't long before the Belgian Sea King (waiting tantalisingly over at Bravo South) then cancelled and was towed across the duty runway to augment the static display.  With more reassurances from George, the radio revealed that the Sea Vixen was circling over Falmouth Bay in blue skies, with plenty of fuel, waiting for a break but was eventually sent away.

Then the curfew tolled the knell of parting day when Commander Ian Fitter gave a lacklustre set of excuses and announced that he had cancelled the flying display.  The @RNASCuldrose and @CuldroseAirDay twitter feeds were notable for the lack of replies to the many "What are you going to do about it ?" queries, presumably due to acute embarrassment; it is not like Culdrose is a stranger to poor weather (Air Days 2008, 2009, 2011 for example).

The Sea Harrier ground display was already a feature in the programme, with two SHAR FA.2 and a Harrier T.8 taxying up and down the runway, in front of the crowd.


This theme could easily have been built upon.  Culdrose has so much to offer and it is quite lamentable how little thought had been given to a bad weather plan, where people could stay on the crowd line; the Helston Twirlers in the arena and the Worm World stand in hangar C2 just isn't enough:

• there's bound to be an airfield bird-scarer or two; bring that on and play the calls from the Land Rover loudspeakers with a commentary ?  Do they have live birds of prey as well; put on a display in front of the crowd ?
• no-one is asking aircrew to take unnecessary risks during peace time but couldn't we have seen some hover taxying ? It was done a few years back in even worse conditions.
• there are Fire and Rescue vehicles all around the base on standby, why not drive them up and down and put out a burning car wreck on the grass ?  In the 1970s, an announcement used to come over the PA "Would the owner of car xxx please move it, as it is blocking...". This would be repeated at half-hourly intervals in an increasingly irritated tone until just before the flying was due to start,  a final warning was given and a Wessex picked up an old banger and inevitably dropped it near crowd centre.

Where has the Royal Navy's improvise, adapt, overcome innovative creativeness gone ?  Down the drain with the Treasury budget cuts, I suspect.

Sea King ASaC.7 XV656/185 of 849 NAS puts on a ground display at the 2011 RNAS Culdrose Air Day. It can be done.

It's a bl**dy long way to Helston and the day certainly wasn't saved but a few incidents for me, put a tiny bit of the shine that the Royal Navy is usually so good at producing, back on:

• 6 Hawks returned from a Thursday War tasking and found about the only break in the mist during the afternoon, to recover.
• there were a couple of premature departures.
• because many people had cleared off as soon as the announcement of flying cancellation had been made, access to the static display in the late afternoon improved enormously.
• I was shown around an 820 NAS Merlin by Observer Chris Ford, who turned it into a really memorable experience with his expert knowledge, personal charisma and excellent delivery, peppered with astute and ascerbic observations.  This officer has a bright future as an after-dinner speaker.

After so many miserable Air Days at Culdrose, of course I'll be going back next year.  And while I won't be ripped off for the Arrivals Day, I will be returning to the Seahawk Enclosure, if only for my wife to have somewhere dry to sit.

You can see some more pictures (just) from the Arrivals Day and Air Day at the RNAS Culdrose Air Day 2016 flickr group page.

Proposed air display and low flying permission charges: 2016/17 review

1 Background
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has reviewed its administration costs following the tragic accident at the 2015 Shoreham Air Show.  It has published CAP1373b, currently at version 2, here:
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/statutory%20charges%20GA%20V2.pdf

2 Finding out about it
I urge you to:
* Read it (it's only 9 pages, plus an Appendix).
* Read it again, very carefully.
* Pinch yourself.
* Ask yourself "Did it really say that" ?

As a back-covering exercise for Shoreham 2015 and a whitewash going forward, it has declared that it wasn't recovering its full costs of pushing Air Display paperwork around and is now going to recover a further £250K (for costs it is introducing) from Air Display organisers.

3 Its conclusions
A shortfall of administrative costs had previously been absorbed and was part of its total, reported operating costs.

Let's examine what that means:
* The CAA was quite content to absorb these administrative cost - otherwise it would have brought forward proposals to recover it, years ago.
*  All other UK airspace, air infrastructure and airspace management service users were paying over the odds to allow the CAA to operate the airshow sector at a loss.

4 Deadline
We have until 29 Feb 2016 to provide formal comments on CAP1373b, by completing an online form (see 8.2 below).

5 What the CAA should do with our comments
That means between 1 March (when comments close) and 1 April 2016 (when the new charging regime for the 2016/2017 season begins), the CAA, within 30 days, is going to carefully:
5.1 Scrutinise every comment submitted
5.2 Classify and prioritise every comment for consideration
5.3 Conduct its analysis
5.4 Generate a series of options as responses to the comments
5.5 Make recommendations to its policy and charging board
5.6 Amend and re-publish CAP1373b to take account of the changes accepted
5.7 Amend all the stationery that's already been printed for the forms
5.8 Change its online web presence to include the amendments based on the accepted comments.
5.9 Count the pigs flying past its Kingsway windows.

6 What the CAA will do with our comments
The CAA is going to make these charges from 1 April 2016, no matter what comments it receives to its paper CAP1373b.  You know how the civil servants work:
* Don't play the ball, play the man.
* Never explain, never compromise, never apologise.

7 There's more...
And that's not all.  The last paragraph on p.4 of CAP1373b version 2 essentially says that there's going to be a root and branch review of the regulations and the charges for Air Displays from the 2017/18 season going forwards.

So we can kiss goodbye to air displays in the UK from then.

8 What can we do about this ?
8.1 - Read CAP1373b and make up your own mind (I am a bit ranty about this, as you can tell from the above).

8.2 - Whatever you think, tell the CAA on this online form BEFORE 29 February 2016
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/modalapplication.aspx?appid=58

It gives you 6 opportunities to comment on different paragraphs of the report.  If you decide to do nothing else, please respond to the official consultation, via the link above.

8.3 - Sign  Darren Willmin's petition to Parliament, here:
Ask Civil Aviation Authority to rethink their charges to the 2016 Airshow season

8.4 - Write to your MP about the matter so they know your view, when it comes to a debate:
https://www.writetothem.com/     or  http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-your-mp/

8.5 - Write to as many UK commercial aviation organisations as you can find and tell them that the CAA has been overcharging them for its services for years and to demand a refund from them.  If the CAA wants to push paper around, it can push it around getting its own house in order.

8.6 - Please tell others about this page.

8.7 - After 29 February 2016, make an application to the CAA under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, to force it to explain how much of the 8 stage response to consultation (see 5.1 to 5.8 above) it actually carried out.

You can write to the CAA at:
Civil Aviation Authority
CAA House
45-59 Kingsway
London
WC2B 6TE

Main Switchboard: 020 7379 7311

8.8 - Procedural approaches
8.8.1 Ask the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee to take a closer look at the charging structure of the totality of the CAA's business and examine it for value for money.
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/
8.8.2 Appeal to the Equality & Human Rights Commission on the grounds that the CAA has not carried out an Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA)  http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/
8.8.3 Ask the CAA to extend its comment deadline until it has supplied you with a usable/understandable version of CAP1373b in large print, Braille, Easy Read, on audio cassette, or in your first language (Hindi, Cornish, Xhosa, Cherokee, Suomi etc).

8.9 Air Display Organisers
You are already paying your Control Tower costs for the necessary air traffic services.  Don't organise any Air Displays.  Instead, organise a Fly In on the day(s) you had planned.  Encourage all participants to make several Missed Approach practices (either procedural or under Radar Control).  You will not need any special permissions nor low flying permits, as your visitors will not be "Low Flying" they will be making normal approaches.  This should also legitimise your penchant for bouncy castles.