Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

The first official news of the tour was given out to the media in a News Release, issued by the Defence Press Office just six weeks before the date set for departure. In it the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon said:

‘Since 1965, the Red Arrows have demonstrated a standard of excellence which the public in the UK has come to recognise as the hallmark of the Royal Air Force. Moreover, during their many displays abroad they have been outstanding ambassadors for their Service, for British Industry whose technical capability is epitomised in the Hawk aircraft which they fly, and for the UK. I am thus delighted that they have been chosen to represent the best of British Industry by undertaking this tour.’

Flight International took this opportunity to publish an article entitled ‘Made in Britain’, based partly on another interview with Sir Michael Graydon.

‘The last couple of years,’ wrote Flight International’s Douglas Barrie, ‘are unlikely to be singled out as particularly auspicious in the RAF’s distinguished history – senior resignations tinged with swingeing cuts in hardware and personnel have left their mark on morale and on the Service’s standing in the public eye. As if this were not enough, the Red Arrows display team – one of the Service’s sacred cows – appears to be under threat, with the Team rendered homeless by the closure of RAF Scampton. There was even a rumour that the aircraft were to be mothballed. This is firmly dismissed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon who says that the future home of the RAF’s pre-eminent display team has been under consideration at ministerial level. He is acutely aware of the importance of the Red Arrows and the slightest suggestion of the demise of the Team he says “fills me with horror.”’

I suspect that the Red Arrows were better pleased with the publicity that accrued from that article than the air marshals.

In the end, Charles Masefield cajoled and bullied sixteen defence-related companies to club together in a unique sponsorship deal and around £3 million was raised, or promised, before final flight planning began. There were, however, to be no logos painted on the side of the Hawks, on the Team’s flying suits, or on ground equipment; the Air Force Board had been quite adamant about that and the Red Arrows were delighted with that decision. The RAF financiers had worked out that £3 million would be sufficient to pay all the Red Arrows’ costs over and above their normal European operating costs. In all the news releases issued by me and my colleagues at Command and in London, we stressed that the tour would not cost the British taxpayer a penny. If we had really wanted to make the most of this, we could probably have proved that the tour would actually save the taxpayer money because we would be out of the country for about four months, with all our expenses being paid for from what we came to call the ‘Pot of Gold.’

The Chief of the Air Staff issued an edict to the RAF’s Director of PR that one of the main aims of the tour as far as he was concerned was to get a lot of good PR for the RAF in the UK national media. I attended numerous meetings in London about public relations and how we might achieve publicity for the Team at home. The trouble is that it is not really national news if the Red Arrows give a display in Cape Town or Harare: there has to be something extra to attract the attention of the UK media.

The two pilots due to leave the Team in early October 1995 at the end of their 3-year stint, Red 6, Sean Chiddention and Red 9, Benny Ball, had to stay an extra 5 months, but they did not find that any great hardship! Their replacements, Andy Offer, the 1995 solo Harrier display pilot, and David Stobie, ex-Hawk solo display pilot, had reported for duty as scheduled in September and they accompanied the team throughout the tour flying occasionally in the rear cockpit of one of the 11 Hawks or, more frequently and less comfortably, in the back of the support Hercules. The winter training for the new pilots would have to be fitted in as and when possible and it was accepted that there might be a need to delay the start of the 1996 European display season.

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