Red Arrows hopeful for 2021 display season after challenging year

The Red Arrows have returned to the skies above Lincolnshire this week following a winter break from training.

But just before the Hawks were put to bed for Christmas, Calendar was given access to the team at RAF Scampton to look back on the strangest of years and look at what might be in store in 2021. 

Dozens of public displays were cancelled in 2020, as was work-up training overseas in the Spring.

The experience lost last year led to the decision not to replace members of the team who had come to the end of their three-year tour.

Pilots usually rotate every three years and three leave the team annually. But team leader Tom Bould, who is from Bradford, is the only new addition for 2021. 

Emma Wilkinson spoke to him and one of the team's most experienced pilots, Steve Morris (Red 9) from Sheffield.

The Red Arrows are considered by many to be the best aerobatic display team in the world and that is often put down to the teamwork, the trust and the strength of the bonds between pilots, engineers and the rest of the team.

Covid-19 has brought challenges to the way they normally operate, so in the second of Emma Wilkinson's reports, she looks at how the Red Arrows have been working to maintain the team dynamic that makes them the best of the best: