E73 - Personal Stories: Commanding Officer, Royal Air Force Coningsby - Part 7 - The Typhoon Display

I'd love to hear from you; feel free to send me a Text MessageFor this, my final personal stories episode of 2024, I thought I would continue the series of tales from my time as Station Commander of RAF Coningsby and cover the development of and the challenges we faced with the Typhoon Display.With a brand new, very high profile, and very high performance aircraft, it was obvious that we would need to put together an airshow display so that we could properly demonstrate the Typhoon's performance and potential to the British public and the wider world.  Given the already considerable demands of working up the Typhoon's operational capability, with fragile serviceability, limited numbers of aircraft, very limited on-aircraft pilot experience, and tight timelines, the creation of a safe but impressive display was a significant challenge.  However, it was a challenge that my team rose to magnificently and for the 2005 display season (the very first year we had the Typhoon properly in RAF service) we put on a great show and a range of air displays across the UK.  That was just the start of what has become an annual Typhoon display ever since then, and the aircraft continues to thrill huge numbers of the public as well as industry professionals at a very wide range of airshows and public events every year.It wasn't all plain sailing though and, as you will hear in the episode, we nearly had a disaster in that first season, and several other events occurred that certainly put my personal leadership skills to the test!I hope you enjoy the story and, as ever, I would love to hear what you think so please do let me have some feedback.Support the showThank you for listening!  If you value the content I produce, please consider supporting the show financially by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/leading4life/ or clicking the "Support the Show" link above.You will have the choice of becoming a Supporter, a Champion or a Patron of the show and any contribution you feel able to make will be hugely appreciated.You can find more about me here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judsonbob/X: https://x.com/JudsonBobWebsite: https://leading4life.co.uk/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Leading4Life