Red Arrows: history, BAE Hawk and displays of the RAF aerobatic team

Nine red jets come over the edge of the airfield in tight formation, the smoke changes from white to red, white and blue, and then the formation breaks apart like fireworks. For many spotters, the Red Arrows are the first aerobatic team they ever saw live, and one of the best known in the world. In this article, you’ll learn how the Royal Air Force squadron came about, why it has flown the BAE Hawk for over four decades, how a display is structured and what to look out for when you want to photograph the Red Arrows.

Red Arrows: the short answer

The Red Arrows are the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the official aerobatic squadron of the British air force. They were formed in late 1964, have flown displays with the BAE Systems Hawk T1 since 1980 and usually appear with nine aircraft. Their signature is the Diamond Nine formation, their motto “Éclat.” Their home base since 2022 is RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. In total, the team has flown well over 4,000 displays in more than 50 countries.

The history: from the Gnat to the Hawk

Before the Red Arrows

Formation aerobatics has a long tradition in the Royal Air Force. In the 1950s and early 1960s, individual squadrons and training units set up their own teams, often with names and colors that lasted only a season. One predecessor of the Red Arrows was the Yellowjacks, who already flew the Folland Gnat. The RAF eventually decided to consolidate this task in a single official team instead of assigning several squadrons in parallel for displays.

Founding and early years

The new team was formed in late 1964, based at the Central Flying School, the RAF’s training establishment for flying instructors. On May 6, 1965, it appeared before the press for the first time at Little Rissington, and three days later came the first public display at Clermont-Ferrand in France. In Britain, it flew in mid-May 1965 at the Biggin Hill International Air Fair. At first, the team appeared with seven aircraft; the first display with nine jets took place in July 1966. The Diamond Nine was added in 1968 and has been a fixture of every program since.

The Folland Gnat

The first display aircraft was the Folland Gnat T1, a small, agile jet trainer. With it, the team flew almost 1,300 displays until the end of the 1970s. It was well suited to aerobatics but demanding to operate. With the Hawk, a modern successor was available in RAF training from the end of the 1970s.

The switch to the Hawk

The first Hawk for the Red Arrows was handed over in August 1979, and the team flew its first season with the new type in 1980. This began an era that continues to this day: no other aircraft has shaped the Red Arrows as much. If you picture the squadron today, it is almost certainly a red Hawk.

The bases

The team’s home bases changed several times:

Period	Base	Note
from 1965	RAF Little Rissington, later RAF Fairford	time with the Central Flying School
from 1966	RAF Kemble	Gnat years and switch to the Hawk
from 1983	RAF Scampton	Lincolnshire, long-time home of the team
from 1995	RAF Cranwell	after Scampton was closed for cost reasons
from December 2000	RAF Scampton	return to Scampton
since October 2022	RAF Waddington	current home base in Lincolnshire

The BAE Hawk T1: the squadron’s workhorse

The Hawk is a two-seat jet trainer with a tandem cockpit, developed by Hawker Siddeley under chief designer Ralph Hooper. The prototype flew on August 21, 1974 at Dunsfold, and from 1976 the type entered RAF service, which received a total of 175 Hawk T1s. Hawker Siddeley later became British Aerospace and finally BAE Systems. The Hawk is powered by an Adour engine from the cooperation between Rolls-Royce and Turbomeca. The Hawk family is an export success: more than 1,000 aircraft have been sold worldwide. You’ll find the detailed profile on the page for the BAE Systems Hawk.

The Red Arrows fly the T1A variant. The most striking difference from other Hawks is under the fuselage: where a weapons pod can otherwise be mounted, the display Hawk carries a fairing with the tanks for diesel and dye. Added to that is the distinctive red livery with white accents.

Why the Hawk fits so well

For an aerobatic team, top speed isn’t what counts but predictability. The Hawk responds precisely to control inputs, tolerates high load factors and is robust enough to last a whole season of many takeoffs, transfer flights and displays. As a trainer, it is also comparatively easy to maintain. One drawback shows on trips: the Hawk can’t be refueled in the air. On overseas tours, the team therefore has to plan numerous stopovers, for example on the way to North America.

The end of an era draws near

The Hawk T1 has been in service for about five decades. In the RAF’s regular pilot training, the more modern Hawk T2 with a glass cockpit has taken over its duties, but the Red Arrows still fly the older T1 version. As things stand, the T1 remains in service with the squadron until the end of the decade, and a successor type is planned through a new jet trainer program of the British armed forces. You should follow the official RAF announcements for details and the schedule. For spotters, that means: if you still want to photograph the red Hawks, you should make use of the coming seasons.

How the team is organized

Behind nine jets in the air stands a large organization on the ground.

• Red 1 to Red 9: the display pilots. Red 1 is the team leader. All are volunteers who have completed at least one operational tour on a fighter aircraft such as the Tornado, Harrier or Eurofighter Typhoon and bring at least 1,500 flight hours. For every open position, there are more than ten applicants.
• Three years per pilot: Each pilot generally stays three years with the team, and three rotate out each year. That way, experience and new faces mix.
• The Synchro Pair: Red 6 and Red 7 form the Synchro Pair. In the second half of the display, they fly the spectacular opposing-pass maneuvers in which two Hawks seem to narrowly miss each other.
• Red 10: The display supervisor doesn’t fly in the program but monitors the displays, often commentates on them from the ground and flies a spare aircraft on transfers.
• The Blues: More than 90 technicians and support staff keep the jets ready for operations, named after their blue overalls. Up to eleven of them travel as the “Circus” to the displays, with each member assigned to one pilot for a season.

If a pilot drops out, the team flies with eight aircraft. Without Red 1, however, there is no display.

A display step by step

A Red Arrows display is divided into two sections. In the first part, all nine jets fly together in changing formations; in the second part, the team splits into a group of five and the Synchro Pair, who appear in front of the crowd in alternation. That way there are hardly any pauses in which the sky is empty.

Three variants depending on the weather

Because the British display season is moody weather-wise, the team has three programs up its sleeve:

Display	Cloud base	What you see
Full Display	above roughly 5,500 feet	complete program with loops and vertical figures
Rolling Display	roughly 2,500 to 5,500 feet	rolls and wing-overs instead of loops
Flat Display	below roughly 2,500 feet	flypasts in formation and tight turns

For you as a photographer, the variant is decisive: in the Flat Display, the jets stay low and close to the show line, good for formation shots against a gray sky. In the Full Display, they climb high, and the smoke trails become the actual subject.

Well-known maneuvers

• Diamond Nine: the diamond formation of all nine jets, the team’s trademark since 1968.
• Vixen Break: The formation flies toward the crowd and then breaks apart in a fan shape in all directions. Loads of up to 7 g occur in the process.
• Spaghetti Break and Tornado: more classics in which the smoke trails twist into intertwined patterns.
• Synchro crossings: Red 6 and Red 7 fly head-on toward each other and pass directly in front of the crowd.

For the 60th season in 2024, the team also added its own anniversary maneuver to the program.

The smoke

The colored smoke isn’t fireworks but vaporized diesel. It is injected into the hot exhaust stream and thus produces the white trails. For red and blue, dye is mixed into the diesel. The pod under the fuselage holds one large tank of pure diesel and two smaller ones with dyed fuel. That’s enough for about seven minutes of smoke, mostly white, plus roughly one minute each of red and blue. That’s why every color sequence sits exactly where it works, for example on the red-white-blue flypast.

Tours and records

The Red Arrows aren’t just a British phenomenon. Even their very first public display took place in France. Over the decades, tours took the team to the Middle East, Asia, Australia and North America. In 2016, it flew in China for the first time on an Asia-Pacific tour, and in 2019 came the most extensive trip until then, a large North American tour with a good twenty displays and numerous flypasts.

A few numbers for perspective:

• The team flew its 4,000th display in September 2006 at RAF Leuchars.
• The record year was 1995 with 136 displays.
• By the end of 2009, more than 4,200 displays in over 50 countries were already on the books, and numerous more have been added since.

Why the Red Arrows are missing in Germany

Until 1988, the Red Arrows were regular guests in Germany and flew more than 170 displays here. After the Ramstein disaster, in which the Frecce Tricolori collided above the crowd, formation aerobatic displays were banned in Germany. What happened then and how it changed the airshow landscape is described in the article on the Ramstein air show disaster of 1988. For German fans, that means: you can see the Red Arrows live almost only abroad.

Safety and accidents

Aerobatics in tight formation remains risky, and the Red Arrows, too, have had fatalities in their history. Several accidents occurred in the Gnat era, including a collision near Kemble in 1971 with four deaths. In 2011, a pilot died after a display at the Bournemouth Air Festival, and in the same year another pilot died in an ejection seat accident on the ground at Scampton. In 2018, a technician died in the crash of a Hawk at RAF Valley. Each of these cases led to investigations and adjustments in training and technology. That displays are switched to a flat program or canceled altogether in bad weather is part of this safety culture.

Spotting and photographing the Red Arrows

The Red Arrows’ display season runs roughly from early summer to late summer, with a focus on British airshows and coastal festivals. The RAF publishes the current calendar every year; plan your trip only once the date is confirmed, because short-notice changes happen.

Where to find them

• Major airshows: At the Royal International Air Tattoo and at the airshows at Duxford, the Red Arrows are often part of the program.
• Coastal festivals: In British seaside towns, the team regularly flies over the sea in front of the promenade. You can stand here for free, but you need patience when choosing your spot.
• Flypasts: On state occasions in London, the team flies over the city, often together with other RAF formations.
• Museums with an RAF connection: Around Duxford airfield with the Imperial War Museum Duxford, or the RAF Museum Cosford with its spotting location, you can also find the history of the Royal Air Force on the ground.

For an overview of which other teams you can see in Europe, see the article European aerobatic teams at a glance. Another major British stage is the Farnborough International Airshow. If you like comparisons, take a look afterward at the Frecce Tricolori, the Patrouille de France and the Patrouille Suisse.

Photo tips for the display

• Keep your focal length flexible: For formations, 100 to 400 millimeters is often enough; for the Synchro Pair you need more reach and fast tracking. The basics are in the guide Photographing airshows.
• Choose a short shutter speed: Jets move fast, and unlike with propeller aircraft, you don’t need to capture motion blur in the propeller. Short speeds freeze the formation sharply.
• Expose for the smoke: White smoke against a bright sky quickly blows out. Watch the histogram and lean toward correcting downward.
• Anticipate the breaks: For the Vixen Break, a wide framing is worthwhile so that all the smoke trails fit in the picture. After one or two displays, you know the rhythm.
• Use humid air: On muggy days, condensation trails form over the wings during hard maneuvers. How to catch them is explained in the article on Vortices and condensation over the wings.

What you should bring on airshow day is summarized in the Airshow day checklist. And if you want to follow the squadron’s transfer flights, the guide Tracking military aircraft online helps. Special rules apply around military airfields; read the article Photographing at a military airfield before your visit.

Conclusion

The Red Arrows have been the Royal Air Force’s showpiece since 1965. A team with seven Gnats became a squadron of nine red Hawks, recognized worldwide for the Diamond Nine and colored smoke. The Hawk T1 has shaped the team for over four decades, but its retirement is drawing near. For spotters in Germany, that means: plan a trip to a British airshow or a coastal festival, keep an eye on the weather and make use of the seasons while the red Hawks are still flying.