Press Release
EUROPEAN AIRSHOW COUNCIL CONVENTION
Brussels, Belgium - 24th-26th February 2010
Between February 24th and February 26th the European Airshow Council organised its annual Convention. Since the traditional venue in Hasselt (Belgium) could no longer cope with the continuous increase of delegates, a new venue had to be selected. This year’s Convention brought 200 delegates from 28 nations, representing the Middle East, Europe, Africa and North America, to Brussels for a series of excellent presentations and informal networking.
A veteran Kick-off
Traditionally the Convention is kicked off with a "Belgian presentation". This year the EAC is honored to welcome the legendary Jacques ‘Red’ Dewaelheyns. Red was the leader of the Red Devils, the former aerobatic display team of the Belgian Air Force. At the age of 78 Red is a veteran aviation enthusiast who provided an inspiring and charismatic key note speech.
After this somewhat nostalgic start, Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Bezier provided some interesting insights into the management of the Patrouille de France. Both presentations touched upon one of the themes of this EAC Convention "Managing a Display Team".
Traditionally the Convention is kicked off with a "Belgian presentation". This year the EAC is honored to welcome the legendary Jacques ‘Red’ Dewaelheyns. Red was the leader of the Red Devils, the former aerobatic display team of the Belgian Air Force. At the age of 78 Red is a veteran aviation enthusiast who provided an inspiring and charismatic key note speech.
After this somewhat nostalgic start, Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Bezier provided some interesting insights into the management of the Patrouille de France. Both presentations touched upon one of the themes of this EAC Convention "Managing a Display Team".
Growth of the airshows in Central Europe
Another theme of this year’s convention is the growth of the airshows in Central Europe. A first presentation was given by Zbyněk Pavlačík, who provided some insights into the evolution of the NATO Days in Ostrava (Czech Republic) over the past 10 years. The Hungarian Kecskemét International Airshow was presented by Robert Fekete. After 10 years the Kecskemét International airshow has received recognition, which is illustrated by the fact that the EAC awarded the Paul Bowen trophy for best European Airshow of 2010 to the Organizing staff of the Kecskemét International Airshow.
Also in the center of Europe but on a different treat is the Swiss Air Force. In 2014 they will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Swiss Air Force, the 50th anniversary of the Patrouille Suisse as well as the 25th anniversary of the PC-7 team. "We will not allow these birthdays to pass unnoticed" Col. Logan said. "We look forward to welcome you all at "Payerne 2014".
The human element
During the 2010 airshow season we encountered quite a number accidents and incidents. In a number of cases the human factor is very relevant. Nonetheless it needs to be said that a number of accidents
were due to mechanical and even structural failure. Though human judgment in relation to flying a low level display has been addressed before, all the delegates appreciated the lectures by Des Barker (South Africa, Test and Display pilot), Dr Steve Jarvis (UK, Department of Systems Engineering and Human Factors at Cranfield University), Dr David Stevenson (UK, Centre for Aviation Medicine) and John Cudahy (USA, Chairman of ICAS-International Council of Air Shows).
Des’ well documented presentation touched upon the various different accidents that happened over the 2010 season. Using common sense doesn’t always help us in overcoming these accidents. Dr Jarvis, in his own energetic way, elaborated upon how our mind reacts when posed under (extreme) stress.
With some challenging statements Dr Stevenson stressed the relevance of fatigue as a risk factor for causing accidents. By reducing the fatigue of pilots you allow more accurate execution of displays. As a final session on this topic, John Cudahy elaborated upon the various initiatives taken by ICAS. ‘Changing the culture of safety’ is a very important mission statement. Since the late 90s the number of fatalities during airshows in the USA decreased. This is partially due to initiatives deployed by ICAS. "I firmly believe that non-punitive rules that encourage communication about incidents, are the right way to mitigating future risks" John says. "If the right culture is in place, there is no need for over-regulation."
The afternoon closed by an interesting Q&A panel session on Airshow safety and was concluded by the presentation of the first EAC Airshow Guide, which is intended to become the Yellow Pages of the Airshow industry.
Dinner and Awards
The traditional Aviation dinner always is the best moment for an award ceremony. Three volunteer judges from Malta, Switzerland and UK selected the best PR material from organizers and performers. The best in each category were: O’Brein’s Flying Circus, Bronco Demo Team, Antonov An-2 Club among participants and Nato Days at Ostrava, the upcoming 100th anniversary airshow in Turkije and Bournemonth Air Festival among organizers.
This year’s Chairman’s Award was awarded to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in the 70th anniversary year since the Battle.
Next to these awards, Colin Hitchins presented the prestigious Maitland Memorial Sword to the EAC on behalf of ‘Jock Maitland’, the legendary pilot and organizer of the Biggin Hill Air Fair. As a big surprise the EAC Board unanimously decided that the first winner would be EAC’s Chairman Gilbert Buekenberghs. The EAC board wanted to honour Gilbert for his long and dedicated contributions to the Airshow Industry. Not only is Gilbert the founder of the International Sanicole Airshow, which will celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2011, Gilbert is also the founder of the EAC.
Gilbert said "I was deeply touched by the fact (which I knew) that the historic sword of excellence was handed over to EAC by a successor of the great friend, master organizer and pilot of the Battle of Britain known historic airfield of Biggin Hill , Jock Maitland. Jock asked Colin Hitchins to give it to EAC to give it from 2012 to somebody for a kind of lifetime achievement. I only did not know the secret agreement to give it to me this year. Getting the sword for my team to give to somebody each year and being asked to keep the original in Belgium to bring it to the convention each year is a great honour you can only dream of, getting this yourself is too much honour. With the other volunteers we started working in 1995 in Genk with 24 people, led by RIAT director Paul Bowen, his colleague Tim Prince, Joe Ciliberti, Jock Maitland, Jacques Bothelin and others, including myself. Believing that we have to increase airshow quality and professionalism we then decided to bring people together each year. We did it for 10 consecutive years in Hasselt, after a European tour leading us to Eindhoven, Parma, Reims, Malta and Barcelona. This year after the lack of support of the local authorities and the restricted space we had in Holiday Inn Hasselt, we had to move to Brussels and this was an important move. The future is open to EAC! Thanks to all the supporters and volunteers! I am happy that my team kept the ‘human touch’ Paul and Jock connected with professionalism in our organization, which probably is a first reason to get such a great award. Secondly my own aeroclub, certainly Nicole my wife, strongly supported me all those years as volunteers for EAC and we deeply respected them. Thirdly my school and students were always proud to do an international training during the convention and contributed to the ‘human face’ of EAC. And in the fourth place I always tried together with my board members and especially with Bob Dixon and his wife Sue to create links between all parties involved, based on a deep common respect. Briefly, each leadership is only possible and facilitated by the good colleagues. This is what I am extremely grateful for. I want to keep on serving EAC and my continuous challenge and motto is ‘anyone who wants to be a leader must be a servant not the boss of those he wants to serve’. I am sorry that on the evening itself I was to emotional by the honour given by one of the greatest colleagues I ever met to say more than I did… Thank you!"
Managing a Display Team
Like the first day, the second day started off with a ‘Red’. Squadron Leader Graeme Bagnall touched upon different elements related to the management of the Red Arrows. His presentation was followed by Alberto Moretti (former Team manager of Frecce Tricolore, currently President of the Italian Airshow Organisation). These 2 presentations together with the presentation of Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Bezier of the Patrouille de France, provided a very good insight behind the scenes of major jet teams. Though all teams may have their own characteristics, they do share the understanding that the actual display is possible only because of an entire team effort, detailed planning and hard training.
The presentations by Squadron Leader Graeme Bagnall and Alberto Moretti also addressed the tremendous impact of an accident on a display team. In 2010 the Red Arrows had a mid-air collision during their spring training session in Cyprus. We all remember the footage of the Frecce Tricolori’s mid-air collision in Ramstein in 1988. "The first thing to do after an accident like the one the Frecce’s encountered is to restore the confidence in the entire team, pilots as well as technicians and staff" Mr Moretti said.
Lessons learnt
With Vito Wyprächtiger (Swiss National Aerobatics Champion) the EAC gave the floor to a young professional who is known as a successful Formula 1 air race pilot, an air race technician (Red Bull Air races) and display pilot. Apart from the professionalism Vito encouraged everybody to share experiences, the good ones as well as the bad ones, because only by doing so we will learn from each other.
The lecture by Tom Gibbons (UK, RIAT Engineering Services & Ramp Manager) provided some very interesting insights into the huge complexity involved in the handling and parking of arriving aircraft, drafting a plan for the showground and handling all aircraft on the day of departure. We all understand now why you need about a 45 man staff to run this assignment. One of EAC’s objectives is to promote excellence at airshows. Daniel Ventura, Gonzalez’ (Spain) lecture on how to use the internet to promote your airshow or display team perfectly fitted into this objective.
Having attended well over 300 airshows, Adrian Campbell (UK, Planes TV) provided a nicely illustrated Top 10 Tips of how to please the airshow crowd.
With participants from USA, Europe, South Africa to the Middle East and a series of high level lectures the 2011 EAC convention was once again an incredible success and the perfect start of the new airshow season. We all look forward to lots of exciting airshows!
Joeri Mombers
EAC Press Officer
