I recently found a video on YouTube about an 2007 air show that occurred near the city of Evora in Portugal where several people could visit and watch civilian, private and military aircrafts.
I was really surprised by the footage because it shows a TAP A310 making an extremely low pass above the runway and manoeuvring near the public area.
I’d like to know your opinion about this video and particularly about the first seconds where the plane flies just above the runway at consequent speed.
I know that military jets have kind of special authorizations during an air show but I never knew that airlines could do this. Is this even “legal”?
I just know that this was trained and planned as a part of an airshow, not sure about the legal part but I think with authorization they can do it correct me if I am wrong please.
Of course I can imagine too that all of this was part of the plan and trained. But thing is, jet fighters for example have a far better manoeuvrability than an airliner. Even if it’s an A310, rather “small” plane, the pilot have way less time to react if anything goes wrong.
You must have more than where I live in Switzerland. For now there are only 6 shows planned for 2018 and 5 of them it’s the training of the “patrouille suisse” which is the aerobatic team of Switzerland.
Rules seem to be very strict in Switzerland too. I don’t think an airliner could do a low pass like this here.
For any form of air display the pilot in command must hold a display authorisation certificate granted by the pilots controlling authority (CAA here in the UK) or through their operator on behalf of the controlling authority.
That display authorisation is granted only after the display routine, manoeuvres, speeds, position and heights are checked, reviewed and authorised by a member of the controlling authority. The display must be practiced and flown for such clearance prior to the event at which the display will take place.
Any breach of the display routine (speeds, heights, AoB etc) can result in disciplinary action. Also many displays have set limits at the event which are not to be breached and are briefed at a pre-event pilots briefing be they heights, speed, noise or geographical limitations.
Displays are something that get pilots to potentially do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Fly your routine and take it easy on the jet! Personally the aircraft in the video ‘looks’ like it is breaching the minimum display height limit but as I don’t know what the limit is set at I can’t be sure. I would say that it is, in my opinion, dangerously low for an airliner not in landing config.
Cool thank you very much for your explanations !
My first thought was also that the pilot should be a little higher, regarding the speed of the plane.
Also on the second sequence, we can clearly see the wing is barely a few meters from the ground.
