Electric reality?
High five… Special Feature
Looking for a way to cover the costs of their flying, five friends who adore aerobatics discovered that forming a team helped – enter Team Raven. Now it is spreading its collective wings and looking for a new member… Barry Gwynnett reports
L
ead makes the call: “Smoke on… Go!” Followed by, “Pulling… Up… Now!” At 300ft and 175kt, five Van’s Aircraft RV-8s curve smoothly upwards, pulling 4G, wingtips a few feet apart. Through the inverted at 75kt, and down the other side with the G coming back on as they level out and roll into a knife edge right turn. Concentration is all, the leader plotting height, track, speed and the wingmen focused tightly on the leader and their references to his aircraft. Twelve minutes later and from a quarter clover. “Break, break…Go !” “Smoke off…Go!” Time to relax, check Ts and Ps and fuel, and roll the neck. “Raven, display complete, exiting South.”
42 | FLYER | September 2021
Above In the Stinger formation for a photoshoot at the Sanicole Airshow, Belgium. Probably the best all round airshow in Europe…
The event is the Midlands Air Festival 2021 and the first time we, Team Raven, has done this ‘in anger’ since Dinan in France in October 2019. We land a few minutes later at the very hospitable gliding site at Bidford. Refill the smoke oil tanks, fuel up for tomorrow, check the aircraft over and put the covers on. Half an hour until the taxi to the hotel, which means we can indulge in the now traditional ‘five pints of cider please’. We sit in the sun and debrief the display. “Safety points?,” asks the leader. Two? No. Three? No. Four? No. Five? No. “And nothing from me,” the leader adds . Domestics? Five heads shake. “Flippin’ awful landing though,” says someone, to howls of laughter. A few points to sharpen up, but generally the verdict is that it was ‘rather a good display’. Team Raven, five guys with five RV-8s, and
