Original subtitles

They are the elite.

Daring combat veterans

flying on the edge of what's possible.

They're called the best aerobatic display team in the world.

On reflection, what we're doing is extraordinary.

But it just feels absolutely normal now.

For the first time, they've allowed cameras to follow them

for an entire year...

...as a new leader takes charge in one of the most challenging periods

in the squadron's history.

It's a year of triumphs...

...of tragedy...

On Tuesday, one of the squadron's aircraft crashed at RAF Valley.

...and of courage.

We have to move on, and the best way to do that is to get

on with our jobs.

But, ultimately, it's a year of breathtaking...

...awe-inspiring...

"flying-

These are the Red Arrows.

Athens flying week, Greece...

A good manoeuvre!

...first stop on a four-week international tour

for the Red Arrows, which marks the end of their 2017 display season.

A support team of 45 engineers, along with 40 tonnes of equipment,

has come out ahead of them.

The Red Arrows arrive in typical style.

Current team leader, call sign Red One, is David Montenegro.

He's about to hang up his red flying suit after three years in charge.

The new squadron leader will take over in just a few weeks.

I feel enormously grateful to have had the opportunity

to lead this team.

It's an awesome team to work on.

It's that dynamic, it's that part of the job that I'll really miss.

\ Thank you! I

There's no doubt I'll go through a grieving process at some

point when I leave this team.

Thank you very much. No worries, see you later.

Are you coming in? I'll come down here.

Cool, no probs, see you later.

One part of it for us is the display itself

and, actually, doing the best display we can,

but on the other hand, it's a case of inspiring the next generation

and we're already proud to do that.

You going to watch our show later? Going to see us fly?

We hope we actually break down the stereotype and they don't

all regard us as nine robotic team pilots that are completely morphed

into each other, because we're not.

We're a complete mix of personalities.

They've been signing autographs and meeting people for hours already,

and that's before they do their show. It's really impressive.

Showtime's approaching.

The Hawk jets, with a top speed of 620mph,

are being prepared by an elite team of ten engineers,

known as Circus.

Selected every year and assigned to one pilot for the whole season,

each Circus engineer flies to displays in the back seat

of a jet.

Every time the jets have been in the air, we have to do

certain checks on the jets. So, open the cockpit,

just make sure all the switches are there, canopy's clean,

windscreen's clean.

Making sure he's got oxygen inside his jet,

because he needs that. So do I when I'm sitting in the back!

Circus engineers don't fly in the show itself but carry out

critical pre-flight safety checks.

Known as the see-off, it's performed with choreographed precision.

As the nine display pilots taxi out, one pilot stays on the ground.

Mike Ling, Red 10.

Thank you very much.

And a very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen...

Six years ago, Lingy WAS one of the display pilots.

Now he gives the display commentary

and monitors safety on the ground.

My favourite manoeuvre this year is the new Tornado manoeuvre we have,

with Reds 1 to 5, 6 and 7 at the front

in a what we call seven arrow, and then Reds 8 and 9 roll around them.

It's a really visually appealing manoeuvre,

so I'm glad we've got it in the routine.

Next, please, have a big round of applause!

Here they are, it's the Red Arrows!

The jets have now collapsed to be around two metres

away from each other as they form the shape of one big red arrow

in the skies.

Now get ready for my favourite manoeuvre of this year's routine.

Get your cameras ready.

This is Tornado!

Reds 8 and 9, with the blue and red smoke,

are now rolling around the other seven aircraft.

The Reds perform the dramatic and technically demanding Tornado

flawlessly.

To the right now, we have three aircraft moving forward to form

our trademark shape, the Diamond Quarter-Clover.

This manoeuvre showcases the Reds' extreme precision,

the nine jets looping as one just six feet apart.

But, halfway through, Lingy spots a problem.

Red 5 and, more seriously, Red 7

have dropped far behind.

As I'm falling off the back of that manoeuvre, I'm just thinking,

"This crowd must..." Well...

I don't know, what was I thinking?

I don't think I can broadcast that.

I just saw the other eight aircraft going away from me.

It was pretty embarrassing at the time, and it felt

like an eternity, being away from the formation.

Yeah, there was some swear words in the cockpit.

Unfortunately, that day, the weather was quite warm and because the air's

less dense, the jet's got less performance

and the engine's obviously producing less thrust.

Clearly, that was quite a high-profile mistake.

This eclat, this word here means excellence.

So, we're striving for that,

and when it doesn't go exactly as we want it to go, then, yeah,

we'll debrief it and work out why and then put it right for next time.

Fortunately, the Reds are displaying twice at Athens,

so, tomorrow, they've a chance to put things right.

Right, gents, welcome to Tanagra day two.

The Red Arrows are in Greece, at Athens Flying Week.

They're preparing for their second display.

Yesterday's was marred by a rare mistake.

I just saw the other eight aircraft going away from me.

The questions then get asked as to why that's happened,

and then it's, how do we not make that happen again?

There are improvements to be made, especially

with temperature jet handling. OK?

It's definitely a culture where, if you front up your mistakes

then you can learn from them.

For me, it was just a case of that experience of knowing

what I need to do to make it not happen again.

Subsequent to that, you'll just see I am sitting pretty much

right underneath 6, so we did learn from that and, thankfully,

it didn't happen again.

We then went on to some really hot locations in Kuwait,

which was up in the high 40s.

And we did the same manoeuvre a few times, and it actually helped us

gain that experience and then make it not re-occur.

Mid-October, and the Reds are back home in Lincolnshire.

Their 2017 season is almost over.

The team now face a period of massive change,

ahead of the momentous 2018 season,

when they'll be leading the RAF's 100th anniversary celebrations.

The bane of our lives is timing.

For example, when I call, "Come in left now,"

just a fraction of a second, the tolerance is so small...

Most years, three of the ten pilots are replaced.

But, this year, four new pilots are joining,

including a new man at the top, a new team leader.

...just the finesse phase as you get into the slots.

Martin Pert - Perty - is a former Red Arrow.

He spent the last three years flying Typhoon fighters, including

operations over Syria.

Can we just talk about some of the high-profile flypasts,

and your sort of decision-making process, both before and on the clay?

Becoming Red 1 is a hugely privileged moment in my career.

I feel it's a really big ask for me to be Red 1 in the 100th anniversary

of the Air Force, because not only have I got to get used to my trade,

I'm doing it in such a public year, when we really are on show

across the world.

It then looks massively all-consuming.

You'lljust feel, "We're not going to crack it."

That is a natural feeling to have.

I think probably the biggest difference you'll notice,

coming from team member into leader,

is really when to be a part of the team

and then when to separate from them. Yeah.

You'll get a feel for times when they need you around.

And this is socially as well.

How much do I offer them from old Monty

to now team leader Monty?

Conscious decision as well. Yeah, and that is conscious.

Red 10, Lingy, is also leaving after a record-breaking ten years

with the team.

It'll be a sad time when I actually shut the door for the last time,

I think, and move on.

And people started to find out that it was my last year,

and I get lots of cards, a bottle of champagne

that came from somewhere in Norwich,

and a mug that was made for me with "Red 10".

So, it's really nice and warming from a personal point of view.

I've been really grateful for the support I've had,

certainly this year, as it's been coming towards the end of my time.

I put this map up when we were planning last year's tour.

Then I thought, why don't I put a little red sticker

about where I visited in a red jet?

You see, I've been all the way over to China, so in 2016,

we went to China for a display.

But, in my first year, we went all the way to New York

and we displayed in New York harbour. So...

In total, there are 46 red dots on that.

So, I've taken a red jet to 46 countries.

I've spent an awful lot of time away from home,

and I've a two-year-old daughter who, I'll be honest,

I haven't really seen a lot of her growing up for the last two years,

so I'm really looking forward to a relatively nine-to-five,

Monday-to-Friday job, where I can spend time

with her and my other half.

Lingy and Monty share a special bond born of a training accident in 2010.

The interesting part of any activity, it doesn't matter

if it's flying, if you're driving, anything,

can carry a degradation of human performance,

as Lingy and I experienced in Kastelli in 2010.

Then they were the synchro pair, flying the two jets that performed

dynamic close-precision manoeuvres.

They were practising the Opposition Barrel Roll.

In this manoeuvre, they flew head-to-head

100 feet above the ground,

with a closing speed of 800mph.

Then they rolled their jets around one another.

It required split-second timing.

There's a slow-motion piece of my brain that can still see

the start of the manoeuvre, the sudden realisation

that this is not the normal picture I see,

and I think, "We're going to collide here."

I'll never forget what the noise feels like when metal hits metal.

His tail fin hit my canopy probably about 18 inches above my head.

Big bang, lots of glass in the cockpit, lots of noise,

because of course you go from a very quiet cockpit

then over 300mph, and it was very noisy.

Ducking my head and closing my eyes and thinking,

"OK, that did not work out well, that could be it,"

is, in essence, how it felt.

Opened my eyes pretty much going straight down towards the ground

to then realise, "I'm here, this is fine."

There have been better times.

And then to understand what happened to my opposition partner.

It was a very quick decision to pull the ejection seat handle

because I knew the last manoeuvre I'd made was to push lower

towards the ground.

I was only at 100 feet in the first place.

We were doing over 300mph.

I just pulled the handle, there was nothing keeping me back

in that cockpit at that point.

I was knocked out by the force of the ejection, so I then came to

as I hit the ground, having been in my parachute.

Looked over and I could see that my watch was a lot further away

than it normally would be, probably by about seven or eight inches.

So, my initial thought was, "My arm's come off."

Not a very pleasant thought at the time.

I then sat up, my arm came with me, so then I realised

I could move my fingers and then realised it was actually

a dislocated shoulder.

I remember talking out loud to myself in the cockpit, saying,

"You just have to land this plane,

"put the jet down safely," all done on condition

of the subconscious, really.

Came to understand that I'd lost a bit of the rudder.

The rudder fell off as soon as I landed.

But the Hawk is an incredible aircraft and it looked after me,

in that respect.

Not once after ejecting did I consider hanging up my flying boots

and never doing it again. In fact, quite the opposite.

I just wanted to get back in a cockpit as soon

as I possibly could.

We were both incredibly fortunate.

We don't often have a nearly 800 mile an hour collision

and live to tell the tale.

We'll go through the main points in the debrief...

As the new leader, Perty's top priority

will be to keep his pilots safe.

Being responsible for the rest of the team pilots is probably

the biggest weight on my shoulders.

The guys in my wing, my team, are purely focused

on formatting on me.

And that's where it befalls me, as Red 1, to make sure

that I'm in the right place at the right time at every stage

of a Red Arrows flight.

Are you going round onto a manoeuvre,

are you going to reverse back?

Red 1 always leads the formation, with the other eight pilots

concentrating on him and precisely following his manoeuvres.

45, come in left now...

All of the team pilots will be formatting on my aircraft,

and they'll be flying their aircraft to a rhythm that I set,

mainly by voice.

Practising holding the bank now.

Voice commands are essential, because if the other pilots simply

move once they see Red 1 moving, their reaction time will cause

the formation to bend.

So, the leader uses rhythmic voice commands

to warn them of everything he's about to do.

Yeah? Yeah, let's do a sortie.

These voice commands are unique to Red 1,

so Monty has to teach Perty the tricky technique.

When you say you're going to come left or come right or pull up...

...there's a rhythmic process that comes to it.

You call it a metronomic cadence.

The "coming" announces that we're about to do something.

The "left" tells them which we're going

and then on the N of "now",

they are going to need to make an input to their aircraft.

For the guys who are 150 feet away, they might have had to put

that input before the N of "now".

Even for an elite pilot like Perty, perfectly timing the right words

with the right manoeuvre isn't easy.

As soon as I had to start talking whilst I was flying,

pretty much basic technique started going out of the window.

I've got 17 years' experience of flying,

but it's much more nerve-racking than any sortie I think I've done

in an aeroplane before.

Perty only has a few clays to perfect his technique

before he takes over from Monty for good.

It is quite nerve-racking having someone's who's done

this for three years, this is their bread and butter,

and after Monty's gone and I don't have that safety blanket any more,

it'll become even more real.

It's going to be a matter of weeks before we got the guys on the wing.

Loading reversals.

It's a really interesting time as a team leader now

because you run the schizophrenic life that you want as much

information as you can, especially from the previous team leader,

yet you just want them to get out of the way

so you can now develop your own style.

He will always be positive, he'll always smile,

but there will be some mornings when he wakes up and thinks,

"Oh, I'm just not cracking this tiny aspect of what I need to do,"

yet he has no-one to communicate with on the squadron.

And that's quite a difficult.

Right, I'm going to debrief, I think.

It's the last day of the Red Arrows' 2017 season.

It's a big day for Circus,

the ten engineers selected each year

to fly in the back seats of the jets

when they travel away from home.

You get your own personal seat, you've got your own personal pilot.

It's a little tight, I'm not going to lie, cos I'm slightly bigger

than some other people, but I'm still not that big

that I can't fit in!

Today's jay and the other engineers' last day

as members of Circus.

The 2018 team will soon be announced.

As a reward, the leavers for the first time being allowed

to back-seat in part a display.

F-'FUD- Ey-up, Chuck.

Pull a chair up.

Why do I get the crap seat?

This last flight is actually quite special to all the Circus members.

It's quite an honour for us to be told we can actually fly

in the back seat in the display.

Scott Mackie, the team sergeant, leads the pre-flight brief.

Yes, this is the culmination of the whole season now.

You've done all the hard work, you've had a lot of fun going away

but you've certainly put the hours in.

This is our reward now, so it should be the best part

of the year, hopefully.

It'll be your last flight with your pilot.

Try not get too emotional! No crying, Jay!

But, yeah, it certainly...

Don't forget it's an opportunity that most people will never get

in their life, so enjoy it, you've earned it,

but stay safe. Finish on a high. Thank you.

Leggies, gloves, helmet, sick bag.

It's going to be good. It's going to be awesome!

Because of the pilots they fly with,

this is going to be a particularly thrilling flight for Scott...

Enjoy!

...and Jordan Thorburn.

I'm quite lucky the position I'm in, to be flying right in the back,

particularly the Tornado.

I've been waiting all year for this manoeuvre, so it's...

...finally here.

Two sick bags, just in case.

Won't be time for that!

OK? Have a good one.

It's incredible how much trust they must have in each other to fly

that close to them at those speeds.

I was shaking constantly through the entire flight.

All that was coursing through my veins was pure adrenaline.

Might have been a little bit of fear as well,

cos I still really don't like flying!

Now it's time for the manoeuvre that'll turn Jordan and Scott's

worlds upside down.

The Tornado.

Incredible, absolutely incredible.

It's the one manoeuvre I was looking forward to,

and it was everything I wanted it to be.

The clouds are too low for the full formation to make

any loops or rolls.

But then leader Monty spots a gap.

To do an actual roll with all the jets in close formations, amazing.

You feel yourself lifting out of the seat, for definite!

A dramatic return to the field ends this circus' stint,

flying shotgun in a Red Arrow.

That display is the best thing I've done in my life.

I don't think I'll ever be able to compete to do anything

like that ever again.

When we landed, I knew that was my last flight

with Dan Lowes as my pilot.

It was bittersweet, it was definitely the highlight

of my career now, we're no longer circus and pilots any more.

That was awesome!

\ No sick bags! I

It was great. That was awesome, actually, to be able to do that

and give them something back, having given us so much this season.

Yeah, it was a real honour.

How was that? How was Tornado?

So different. Just the G, I noticed was a bit more constant

rather than the sharp brake to land that we're used to.

I said to Lizzie, what I'm so pleased about

is we got the gap.

We got airborne and thought, "Oh, it'll just be flat."

But once we got that gap and got those two rolls in, it was...

Yeah. Come on, big man, breathe in.

Come on, then. Come on!

Thanks. Well done, mate. Cheers. Awesome. Thanks again.

Been epic. Smashing.

Before the new pilots step into their positions,

there's a final flight for this year's pilots.

A photoshoot to mark the handover.

Hannah Smoker, the team photographer,

will be flying photo chase with Lingy.

All right? Feeling good? Feeling good.

Ready. Perfect, excellent.

Well, today we're gonna go and do your first display photo chase.

What I'd quite like is a canopy-on shot of Spitfire.

It's quite a fleeting shot you're gonna get. OK.

Looking down through the left-hand side of the aircraft, and the idea

there is not being too close because... You need all of it.

...you need to be able to zoom out to get the...

It'll be Lingy's last flight after his record-breaking

ten years as a team pilot.

Secret plans are being made to mark the occasion.

There's a little bit in me that's sad.

I think hanging up my red suit is going to be a big deal,

without a doubt.

Lingy must fly close enough for Hannah to take the perfect shot.

But avoid getting in the way or blocking escape paths

the other pilots may take in an emergency.

There aren't many people that get the opportunity to see

a Red Arrows display from that frontage point, so, by far,

from my flying perspective, as Red 10,

it's definitely the most challenging and the most enjoyable.

It was really good for my partner and our daughter

to be on the ground watching that final flight.

They'd come up to watch it, knowing it was going to be my last time

flying a jet in a red flying suit.

When I landed, I could see two fire engines positioned on the taxiway.

And, as we got towards them...

...the fire engine sprayed a guard of honour of water

across my aircraft.

It was very moving.

That is the end of what, for me,

has been a very big chapter of my life.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

\Daddy!I

Hello, trouble! How you doing?

\Daddy!I

Yeah!

\ Big smiles! I

It's an RAF tradition for pilots to suffer a hazing

after their last flight with the squadron.

THEY LAUGH

Someone else want a go? Yep!

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thanks, buddy. Cheers. Thank you.

Each year, in honour of those leaving the Reds

and to mark the start of a new season, there's a formal dinner.

It's held in College Hall at RAF Cranwell...

...where Air Force officers have been trained for nearly 100 years.

Being a Red Arrow isn't all low-level loops and glamour.

Can you just grab the other box and give me a hand to take it...? Yeah.

The pilots themselves are the very hands-on event organisers.

Mike Bowden is putting the finishing touches to the tables.

They're very personalised to the individual,

so they're dedicated to the person who hosts the table.

So, that's Tom Bould, so, Red 6.

So, he's one of the levers, so it's plaqued and personalised

to him. So, yeah, it's a fantastic memento of the year.

I'm gonna rush and get these finished.

We haven't got long to get ready.

Dan Lowes and Matt Masters are in charge of the squadron albums.

These are, essentially, photo books, of the history of the team.

So I'll just show you this one I've got it in my hand.

It's just every team that has gone through has taken pictures

of what they've done throughout the year, places they've been,

places they've displayed at.

It's a bit of a family photo album, and a bit of a laugh, really.

Obviously, this one wasn't as funny cos things may have happened

during this display season, this was when they actually clipped

a yacht that got into the display area, the mast was too tall.

Here, Steve clipped the top of the mast with his wing.

It actually destroyed part of his wing.

There's some dramatic pictures here of the aircraft going to sea.

You can just see him leaving the aircraft there

before it hits the sea just by Brighton pier there.

You can see him landing in the water in his parachute.

That was the same day. He's got some burns on his face

from the actual ejection itself.

But, as I say, that kind of family thing.

"Hey, Steve, do you see the yacht with the big mast?"

That was a bit of banter just to get people through everything.

It's really good. It's really good to see.

Look at that!

We were water-skiing behind the style that these guys

had in the '80s. I mean, look at that.

That's... That's a good looking bunch.

HE LAUGHS

At 7pm, the guests arrive, welcomed by the Reds,

who've swapped their flying suits for something a little smarter.

In his very final role as Red 1, Monty's hosting the boss

of the entire Royal Air Force,

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier.

It's a really defining point in the year.

The guys are still calling me boss.

I have three hours and, at midnight, that is it.

It's like Cinderella going to the ball.

At 1am, I am definitely not their boss any more.

Perty will be their boss, no matter what.

And it draws a good line in the sand, so...

One big, big speech to do...

which...

I've done a lot of public dinner speaking, and it's quite apt

that my last speech, I'm sat between the chief of the air staff

and Ranulph Fiennes.

As ever, I'm absolutely bricking it.

Guests include retired Reds and people who have helped the team

over the last season.

Lingy's replacement, Adam Cos Collins,

gets his first taste of the glamorous side of the job,

hosting Carol Vorderman.

The handover to the new leader begins, with a speech from

the head of the RAF.

The Red Arrows will be absolutely the pinnacle of our own activities

during the RAF 100 celebrations.

And it's a fantastic opportunity, and I'm sure that the new leader

is going to be absolutely at the centre of that.

So, no pressure there, Perry.

LAUGHTER

The Red Arrows mean a huge amount to me.

They mean a lot to the nation overall.

So, I'm proud and I know the nation's proud of

what you do, as well. So, thank you very much indeed.

By tradition, the actual handover takes place at midnight...

in the bar.

All good? Any beers? I might have a beer, actually, yeah.

Do you want a beer? I'm all right. Can I have a lager, please?

\ Thank you. I

Lingy passes the Red 10 role to Cos.

Happy times. Yeah. That's it. Well done.

Thank you. You are gonna have the best time.

Really, really enjoy it. I'm excited.

I'll be ready to listen to you at the Ayrshires

as they come up. All the best. You're gonna have a wicked time.

No pressure. Thanks for a great handover.

Can't wait. Excellent.

And the leadership of the Red Arrows is handed over Perty.

All the best.

I do wish you all the best.

You're going to have an amazing centenary year.

\ There we go. I

Appreciate it. Number 23.

Good luck, mate. All the best.

A new era for the Red Arrows begins.

It's the first day of training for the Red Arrows'

historic 2018 season.

The pilots are back in green flying suits.

They only fly in their famous red suits once their new display

has been approved after six months of intense training.

We don't have air traffic, they're currently green...

For the first time, Perty is in the hot seat as Red 1.

And two new display pilots, Jon Bond and David Stark,

have joined the team.

Both are hugely experienced RAF fighter pilots.

Bondy last flying state-of-the-art Typhoon fighters.

It's a completely different flying discipline to what we've been doing.

I haven't done a lot of formation in the last four years,

and the formation that I've done has been on a

very modern and advanced jet, so the handling characteristics are...

They're a lot different.

You find yourself getting excited one moment and then it dawns

on you the realisation that it's not going to be as simple

as it might appear to some people. So...

You have moments of trepidation, as well.

It's probably a healthy mix of excitement and trepidation.

For the past two months, Bondy and Starky have been flying

back seat to experience what's in store for them.

Now they'll take the controls themselves.

I think one of the big differences is how public this is gonna be.

You know, this time next summer, there could be 50,000 people,

many of whom will be knowledgeable, and they'll be able

to spot our errors.

First, though, they're issued their official Red Arrow mugs.

It's a bit of a tradition and a rite of passage

to have your own mug, let alone a Red Arrows one.

It's pretty cool.

It's quite nice to have it in this traditional shape

of the Red Arrows.

Today, the new pilots six months of training begins.

They'll attempt ultra-close formation aerobatics

for the first time.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

The moment you've been waiting for, slot one, this is it, this marks

the first part of your career for the next three years.

Weather-wise, we're looking at slightly improved conditions.

We've waited around all day for it to pick up now.

I'm now in the Red Arrows, I'm going to do my first training flight

with Red 1 and start putting smoke out the back of a red jet,

so this is going to be huge for me.

It's as if my career's been building up to this point.

Just don't overdo it, don't bite off too much.

Fly it by eye, but just get used to what that flying by eye

versus my cadence is. OK?

Pre-brief yourself, coming left now, holding the bank now.

Pretty terrified, actually.

First time flying a Red Arrows jet in formation, not really knowing

whether you can do it,

how you'd cope with it physically and mentally.

30 minutes is what I've touted us for.

Perty starts with gentle turns.

He won't attempt any aerobatics unless the new pilots prove

they can hold a solid, safe position just eight feet away.

Even this requires incredible skill and concentration.

A job made even harder under turbulent, low cloud.

You're almost not thinking about it, you're just trying to blank out

everything around you, blank out the horizon, try and blank out

the sun, if you can, just focusing on that aeroplane

that you're following and what your hands, feet

and throttle are doing at the same time.

Easier said than done.

The new recruits do so well,

Perty decides they're ready for something more challenging.

When he said down for a loop, it was all a bit of a blur.

I think my whole body tensed up.

Definitely raise the hairs on the back of my neck a bit,

I probably switched on a little bit more than I had done previously,

if that was possible.

The first call of smoke on, trying to find the button to get

the right smoke was probably the most challenging bit.

And, then, actually going up for the loop, smoke on...

...that was just a thrill.

It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and to loop a Red Arrow

for the first time was a milestone for me.

A wonderful experience, to be honest.

Been waiting a long time to do this, so it was great.

We expected to do some wing overs and some turns under G,

but when the boss called down for the loop...

the dread came over us, the fear.

It's, like, first day at school again.

It was excitement and nerves all in one because it's a completely

new skill that we're going to have to try and learn,

so I guess it's sort of natural to want to be really good

at it straight away, and when you find out you're not...

But, no, I feel really good.

\ Buzzing. I

It was awesome.

The hard work begins now.

The weather did open up beautifully.

If you can't go upside down on day one of being a Red Arrow,

then surely you must be in the wrong job, right?

That's about it, training done.

We are ready for 2018.

5l

Next time...

in his first tense weeks in command, Perty must battle the weather...

Trying to formate in that turbulence is just adding

to their complications.

INDISTINCT SHOUTS FROM PILOT

...every pilot has to learn challenging, new manoeuvres,

pushing them to the limit...

It's just excitement, adrenaline, ground rush, speed rush.

It's awesome.

...as the Red Arrows prepare for their biggest year ever.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media