Red Arrows : Formations

The first display by the Red Arrows was at RAF Little Rissington on 6 May 1965. The display was to introduce the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team to the media. However, the first public display was on 9 May 1965 in France, at the French National Air Day in Clermont-Ferrand. The first public display in the UK was on 15 May 1965 at the International Air Fair at Biggin Hill. The first display with nine aircraft was on 8 July 1966 at RAF Little Rissington.
The first display in Germany was at RAF Laarbruch on 6 August 1965, and since then the Red Arrows have performed in Germany 170 times. However, the Red Arrows' last display in Germany was on 22 August 1988 after formation aerobatics were banned in Germany following the Italian Air Force Frecce Tricolori accident on 28 August 1988 in Ramstein.
During displays, the aircraft do not fly directly over the crowd apart from entering the display area by flying over the crowd from behind; any manoeuvres in front of and parallel to the audience can be as low as 300 feet, the 'synchro pair' can go as low as 100 feet straight and level, or 150 feet when in inverted flight. To carry out a full display, the cloud base must be above 4,500 feet; if it is below 2,500 feet then they will perform a 'flat' display, which consists of fly-pasts and steep turns.
One of the biggest crowds to see the Red Arrows was in Lisbon on 13 June 1973, when there was a crowd of 650,000 people, a statistic exceeded in 1996 in Sydney.[citation needed]
The greatest number of displays flown in any year was in 1995, when the Red Arrows performed 136 times. The smallest number of displays in one year was in 1975, after the 1973 oil crisis limited their appearances.

Display costs

In 1977, a charge of £200 was introduced by the MOD for a Red Arrows display. By 2000, the charge had risen to £2,000 (including VAT and insurance). To date, the Red Arrows have performed over 4,000 displays (the 4,000th being performed at RAF Leuchars in Scotland in September 2006).


Transits

UK residents may occasionally see the Red Arrows on a "transit flight" (getting to the display location). On these transit flights, the team flies at the relatively low altitude of 1,000 feet. This avoids the complication of moving though the cloud base in formation, and also avoids much controlled air space. Jets are more efficient at higher altitude, so longer flights are made at 35,000 to 42,000 feet. On these transit flights, they may fly as a formation of 10 or occasionally 11 planes, including spare planes. Sometimes a C-130 Hercules accompanies them, carrying spare parts.


Smoke

The smoke trails left by the team are made by releasing diesel into the exhaust; this oxidises straight away, leaving a white smoke trail. Dyes can be added to produce the red and blue colour. The diesel is stored in the pod on the underside of the plane; designed to carry a 30 mm ADEN cannon, it now houses three tanks: one 50-gallon tank of pure diesel and two 10-gallon tanks of blue- and red-dyed diesel. The smoke system uses ten gallons per minute; therefore each plane can trail smoke for a total of seven minutes – 5 minutes of white smoke, 1 minute of blue and 1 minute of red.