Red Arrows to fly 7 ship in 2022

[jasT1981]

Reds are down to a 7 ship for 2022 due to pilots moving on to other roles.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/royal-air-force-aerobatic-team-rafat-in-2022

There are 'rumours' in daily tabloid toilet roll papers as to what the reasons are, but best not give them the time of day.

[Angry Turnip]

It does seem rather strange that two pilots have moved to other roles, especially with their season to start 25th May 2022.
I would expect that sort of thing would be planned well in advance. Reading between the lines could it be simply a clash of personalities within the team, and the two involved were removed ?
It was confirmed in March 2022, that the Reds would continue to use the Hawk T1 and Hawk T1A, until at least 2025, and they have access to some 20 airframes, so lack of serviceable aircraft should not be a problem either.
I remember seeing the Reds display as a 7-ship at RIAT 2012, and it worked pretty well.

[rookie]

I'm wondering if they haven't made the grade to display and have been RTU?

[Sneaky_Nikon]

They're allegedly using nine aircraft for "national flypast events" throughout the year, do it wouldn't appear be an airframe issue. 

Suspect the reasons will become evident soon enough.

[jasT1981]

One pilot was already MIA before their trip to Greece for their practice and PDA. Red 5 has been missing since around Feb and they had been flying an 8 ship practice.

I suspect it might be easier managing a 7 ship for formations than 8.

Interestingly enough, this is the Queens Jubilee year, the last time they flew a season as a 7 ship was.... the 2012 Queens Jubilee.

[Angry Turnip]

I have heard from a few different sources that it was the new pilots that were sent home, allegedly both were struggling to fly to the standard required, and there was some discipline issues involved as well.

In fairness having watched countless programmes about the Reds training, many previous pilots said flying with the team was very different to their operational squadron flying, and it was almost like learning from scratch.
The Hawk T1 is an older type, and pretty basic compared to the modern frontline aircraft, and some find the transition very difficult or worse.
The Reds have to get their PDA for the season by a certain deadline, and if elements of the team are still not ready, then at some point a judgement has to be made.
The alleged discipline issues are probably where the media decided they would just run with something, even if it wasn`t true.
This is one of those situations were the RAF may have been better not to have said anything, other than it was for operational reasons that the team would display as a 7-ship this season.

[Sneaky_Nikon]

FWIW... I know a former Red who says simply that the RAF is not the organisation that he held a commission in. You can make of that what you will.