Waiting for news...

It's an exciting day today in the world of Red....and Blue, in fact! Today is the day that the Red Arrows find out who will be flying in which position for the 2014 display season, and at the same time their support/engineering chaps - known as the "Blues" due to the distinctive royal blue flying suits they wear during the season - will hear which of them have been assigned to the prestigious "circus" positions. "Circus" is the name given to the chaps who each have a specific plane/pilot to take care of - they fly in the hawks to and from the display sites (although not during the actual displays, they do take part in flypasts if these are conducted as part of transit rather than as specific events).

We know that these two chaps...

Synchro pair 2012

Ben Plank & Chris Lyndon-Smith - flying as the Synchro pair, Red 6 & 7 - seen here flying at Dartmouth Regatta last year, will be departing for pastures new - Planky's done rather well having had 4 years flying with the team, and seems hotly tipped to make a return in the future as Red 1 too. Pilots usually fly with the Reds for 3 years, so each year sees 3 new pilots come onto the team, however difficult circumstances over the past few years have dictated that the regular pattern has been broken. This year will see just 2 new arrivals from the shortlist of 6 that went forward earlier in the year during Excercise Springhawk - they will fly in the front half of the team - Reds 1 - 5. It's likely that one of the 2nd year pilots will move to Red 7, Synchro 2, with this year's Red 7, James McMillan - moving forward one space to become Synchro Leader.

Red 7 2013

With the exception of Red 1 - "The Boss" - who stays in his position for his three years with the team (and will also have flown with them earlier in his career also) everyone else finds out today which role they will be performing next year, and the 2 new pilots will also be announced to the public. The news is likely to be broken first on the Reds own website and I will edit this post later on to include the new lineup once the press release appears. You can also follow several of the chaps on Twitter - Red 4, Martin Pert, was tweeting the other night about a likely change in his Twitter name!

Is anyone else waiting for news today?

Robyn