Australia, Brunei, Philippines - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

The Hawks were left at Butterworth in Malaysia over the 1995 Christmas holiday period because it was neither financially nor operationally sensible to fly them all the way back to UK. It was a different matter for the pilots and ground crew; they returned to the UK by British Airways to join their families for the holiday period. The return journey to Butterworth in early January was followed by a week getting back into practice. After that it was the long haul to Australia, transiting via Jakarta, Bali, El Tari, Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide, Canberra and thence to Sydney where they arrived to a rapturous welcome on 23 January.

The Red Arrows display in Sydney was scheduled for 26 January because that is Australia Day and a public holiday. The Team gave a spectacular display over the harbour area and Australian police reported that 1.2 million people watched. I claimed that, on behalf of the Red Arrows, as a world record for the largest number of spectators ever at any single air display show anywhere. It seems likely that most of the people would have turned out whether the Red Arrows were there or not. Apparently the Harbour Bridge area on Australia Day is something like Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve – but warmer. I cannot, therefore, claim that all those people turned up specifically to see the Red Arrows perform, but see them perform they did.

I was not invited to the Australia section of the tour - I don't think funds ran to that.

The Sultan of Brunei himself watched from the privacy of the Royal Hangar on the other side of the airfield. The Team Leader, John Rands, was later granted an audience with the Sultan.

The Philpipines display at the Villamor Air Force Base in Manila was intended only for locally invited guests because members of the public were not supposed to be allowed into the airfield restricted area. However, many thousands of onlookers turned up at the gates and eventually a young Philippine Air Force Officer shrugged his shoulders and ordered the gates to be opened. "This is a free country," he said to the guards. "Let them in!" The grateful people swarmed in. The lucky ones at the front of the throng found shelter from the blazing sun in the VIP pavilion. When the VIPs, including several Government Ministers and high ranking military officers, arrived at the pavilion from a reception on another part of the airfield, they stood out in the blazing sun and made no attempt to move the interlopers out of their seats! Can you imagine that happening at a VIP event in UK? It is not recorded what, if anything, happened to the young officer but I reckon he deserved congratulations for his sensible decision.

On the evening before the display I was invited to take part in a live TV programme so that I could answer questions about the Red Arrows as they were phoned in by members of the public. It was a very strange experience. For a start the journey of about 3 miles from my hotel to the studios took over an hour in the Air Attaché's car due to the enormous traffic jams that plague Manila every day, all day long. We arrived at the studios at about 8 pm but had to sit through several items including an extremely gory piece about a series of murders complete with vivid descriptions from eye witnesses. Everything was a done both in English and the local language, which I believe was Tagalog. My part in the proceedings did not start until nearly 11 pm and the need to get most questions translated into English and my replies into the local language made the whole thing rather drawn out - especially as there was a 10-minute break in the middle for some live music from a local group. However, everyone had a very enjoyable time and there was obviously a lot of interest in the Red Arrows.

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