In 1986, I realised having already been in the airshow business for 5 years
that actually no one was doing a great Wing Walking act.
In our business, the most important thing, of course, is safety
so, AeroSuperbatics is all about safety.
It’s all about being very careful and for that reason we chose Shell because
Shell is a brand that’s been around a long time and it puts across to me that image of a being a safe brand.
Something we can rely on and something I feel safe with.
The importance of the engine oil is the fact that we have all of these moving parts,
travelling at high speed, they are all moving very quickly,
the pistons are going up and down probably 30 or 40 times per second.
The engine oil is under extreme pressure and really high temperature inside the cylinders,
and there’s nine of them.
We need to rely on the fact that the engine oil will maintain its pressure to the bearings and the moving parts
collect heat, and dissipate the heat through the oil cooler and also keep the inside of the engine clean
We need to be able to trust that the oil will do that without us having to worry about it.
Our oil is keeping the internals of that engine in good condition
and that’s great because it actually ends up costing us a lot less money on our overhauls.
If that wasn't the case and we were using a product that
wasn't looking after the inside of the engine and mechanical parts so well,
we would need to replace more of those parts.
I always talk to the engineers and they always give a very good report on the condition of our engines
because even when they’ve done their 1,300 hours, near the end of their lives,
the internals of the engine are in really good condition and that can only be because of the oil.
We’ve had such a long history and relationship with AeroShell because it is the best engine oil.
It’s something that we can put into the aircraft and we don't have to worry about it.
We can be safe in the knowledge that it’s going to provide good oil pressure and good heat dissipation properties.
And when flying in formation we have blind trust with everybody in the formation.
We're flying so close together
that we have to know that everybody else is going to stay in the positions where they say.
It’s a similar thing with AeroShell, we have blind trust in the oil.
It’s really important that the oil performs well under extreme conditions
because that means that it’s one thing that we don't have to worry about.
We have lots of other things to worry about – height, speed,
where the display line is, where the crowd is
the girls that are on the wing and also flying within 10 feet of each other
Smoke oil is very important, it’s a major part of display.
The way smoke was produced in the past was by using diesel oil.
Diesel oil is carcinogenic, it smells, it’s not very nice and when you're pumping
litres and litres of it into the exhaust system
it messes the aircraft up, it goes in your hair,
it goes on your clothes and it really, really smells.
Whereas AeroShell Smoke Oil is colourless, it’s odourless
and for us as display pilots it has revolutionised the display world.
When we do a show with AeroShell Smoke Oil the smoke is so dense
and white that it actually lasts longer in the air.
It would last twice as long as a comparable smoke produced by diesel fuel oil.
The reason we use AeroShell as our sole engine oil and smoke oil
is not just for its performance - that we can totally rely on.
It’s also we fly all over the world, Japan, Australia, the Middle East, the whole of Europe.
We know that we can always get that product because there’s such a good distribution of AeroShell Oil everywhere we go.
We choose to use AeroShell Oil because it performs under extreme conditions, much like we do.
It’s reliable, just like we have to be, and it enables us in our formation to fly above the rest.