Is it true? - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

This is an extract  from an article I wrote for an aviation magazine in early 1998

One of the most common questions a PRO is asked starts with the phrase, "Is it true that". For example, when it became public knowledge in 1994 that Scampton was probably going to close permanently, I had to deal with a whole string of phone calls from the media asking if it were true that the Red Arrows were about to move to various airfields from one end of the Kingdom to the other.

One of the first calls came from a reporter on a Cornish newspaper asking, "Is it true the Red Arrows are moving in to St Mawgan? If it is, I can tell you the local council are not at all pleased about it." It was not true of course – about the Red Arrows moving to St Mawgan, not the local council’s displeasure at the idea. St Mawgan may be a nice place to be in, in the summer, but it is hardly a suitable home for the Red Arrows; after all it would mean a separate transit flight to reach almost every display location except those in the West Country and that would have increased running costs considerably. We never discovered what prompted that question.

Another call came, surprisingly on exactly the same day as the Cornish enquiry, from a reporter working for a newspaper in the north of Scotland. Was it true that the Red Arrows were moving to Lossiemouth. At least I was able to trace the source of that story. The reporter, in an unusually frank admission, told me that someone had been overheard in an Elgin pub talking about a move to Lossiemouth. The person was heard to say that he worked for the Red Arrows and an enterprising stringer (unattached freelance writer) made a pound or two by putting two and two together and making five. In fact it turned out that the person who had been overheard was actually talking about his posting to Lossiemouth at the end of his tour with the Red Arrows!

There were some more, equally implausible, rumours going the rounds at the time – Honington, Sculthorpe, Brize Norton, Elvington, and even Kemble, to name but a few. There was also the invitation from a well-known civilian airfield, oft-frequented by the Red Arrows, to move into their location and be permanently based there. And did you hear about the ardent Red Arrows’ fan who moved house from Lincoln to Kings Lynn when he heard that the Team was moving to Marham? I watched that story on local TV and read about it in the local papers so it must be true!

These ‘is it true’ questions crop up all the time, but not always to do with squadron moves. Is it true the Red Arrows are displaying this year in USA/Indonesia/China/Korea etc is another common thread. When I first went on a PROs’ training course, many years ago, the following question was cited as an example of what an unscrupulous reporter, following up a rumour, can do to an unwary PRO:  "Is it true the Station Commander has stopped beating his wife?" If the PRO replies "no comment", the reporter can make of the answer what he wishes. "An RAF spokesman would not confirm that the Station Commander had been beating his wife", or, "an RAF spokesman did not deny that the Station Commander had been beating his wife."

PROs know about these questions and are on their guard. So, in answer to the current crop of ‘is it true’ questions about whether or not the Red Arrows are moving, and if they are moving where are they going, I would like to make it absolutely crystal clear that I definitely do not know the answers, but I am led to believe that the answers will be in the Strategic Defence Review.

Finally, one ‘is it true’ question that I can answer. Rumours started to circulate in early 1998, in spite of MoD denying them, that the Red Arrows would no longer fly over the crowd at any stage of their displays. So, is it true that the Red Arrows are going to stop over-flying the crowd at public displays? Yes, from next year. After 9 years, we are going to conform to EC rules so 1998 will mark the end of another Red Arrows’ tradition. From the 1999 Season, there will be no more over-flying of the crowd. After the Ramstein tragedy of 1988 involving the Italian Air Force Aerobatic Team, Frecce Tricolori, some countries immediately banned crowd over-flights by all aircraft, but the Red Arrows were given waivers in many countries on the grounds that our over-flights are always in a stable, or diverging, formation and so there was no risk of collision. The ‘crowd rear’ arrival, which has been a feature of every Red Arrows’ display since the earliest days, will be no more. The new ruling will also probably preclude the spectacular Vixen Break which we consider perfectly safe because all the aircraft are diverging, upwards and outwards, from each other. We are not sure yet what effect the ruling will have on the Synchro Pair, who usually retire to crowd rear after each of their manoeuvres.

Watch this space!