Eclat is a noun taken from the French, and it has an accent above the E when written properly.
It means brilliant display or effect, for example ‘he finished his recital with great éclat’, but the Red Arrows use it to mean excellence. It’s part of their standard on the badge that they wear on their uniforms and in their briefing room.
In January 2019, I had the enormous privilege of taking my 11-year old son (and myself) for a day at RAF Scampton with the Red Arrows.
I waited a little while before I wrote this blog after attending to let the effect of the day sink in but it has become, in my memory, one of the most extraordinary days I can remember.
RAF Scampton is East of me in Lincolnshire and it houses the RAF Acrobatic Team, otherwise known as the Red Arrows.
The history of the Red Arrows is long and steeped in glory, it is a huge honour for an RAF pilot to be accepted to fly within that team.
They are considered to be the best in the world, and have been for many years.
I could write hundreds of blogs about that day, about how special it was for my 11-year old boy and how it inspired him as well as his 47-year old Father, but there are just a couple of things that this has distilled down to that are important for me to share.
The fast jet pilots who are members of the Red Arrows (there are 11 of them and 9 of them fly) are without a doubt one of the best teams that I have seen in action. The culture that surrounds them is one of cooperation, collaboration and pursuit of excellence through learning from mistakes, and it is extraordinary to see.
But there is a humility that you would not expect from fast jet pilots which is quite extraordinary.
Callum and I got to sit at a table in the mess with Red 1.
Red 1 is the ‘boss’, and they call him the boss; his CV in the RAF is quite extraordinary.
We also sat beside Red 8. He entered the RAF ages 18 and at 22 was flying Tornados in the Gulf War, you don’t get into the Red Arrows if you don’t know how to fly.
In the briefing room, there are 10 red chairs at the front and 16 blue ones at the back. The pilots wear red and the support team wear blue, and they all respect each other to the same level because none of them can do their job without the other.
The support team were quite extraordinary, the engineers were amazing.
The pilots always sit in the same red seat every single briefing. They brief before they fly and afterwards.
They will not fly again until they have debriefed the previous flights video; they video everything.
Here is the thing though, they have a language that they speak during the debrief about their own performance. It goes something like, if they’re too far in front of the plane beside them they shout ‘over it’, if they’re too far behind they shout ‘behind it’. They have various codes that they shout at themselves and during the debriefing (there were 5 flying that day) Red 1 watches as they criticise their video and highlight their mistakes that they have made in their flight; then they fly again.
Apart from the humility, the astonishing team work and the wonderful way that we were welcomed to the Red Arrows, and in particular the way my son was welcomed, it’s the trust that the team puts into each other for survival, literally for their life.
The front 5 in the Red Arrows are called Enid (the famous five), and as Enid flew over the hanger with Callum and I stood beneath with the smoke on they were doing 350mph. They pulled upwards into a 4G loop at 150mph and their wing tips were 8-11ft apart. I don’t know how long it takes for a jet flying at 350mph to pass 8ft in the wrong direction, but it isn’t long, so you better trust the guy who is beside you to do his job properly.
Afterwards they debriefed to see what they had done right and wrong on the video.
Imagine that, imagine we could do that, imagine we did that!
There is so much to learn from people like that, who are dedicated to their craft and who work as a team.
The very final thing though was the leadership of Red 1. He doesn’t go in for rank or title, he leads by example. All of those guys in the Red Arrows were extraordinary at their craft and had reached the highest level of their trade but they would be devastated if Red 1 was disappointed in them, truly devastated and that was motivation enough.
I have to finish by saying thanks to Hayley, who used to be my PA but moved on to better things in Marketing for The Campbell Clinic and to her fiancé Michael who secured the day for Callum and I as part of the Charity ball. The raffle which was won by Charlotte who works at the practice who then gave me the ticket for Callum because she knew how much he would enjoy it.
I will talk to people about this for the rest of my life, it was truly extraordinary but the things I learned will reverberate through my business forever.
Blog Post Number: 1915
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