ORGANISERS of this year's Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford have taken the unprecedented step of publishing a list of aircraft that failed to turn up at this year's show.

They say they want to explain some of the reasons why many aircraft stayed at home.

The announcement was made through the airshow's website and explains how the "war on terrorism" and global air operations caused last minute changes.

Among the aircraft that failed to turn up at the show include an example of the enigmatic Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady spy-plane, which was withdrawn from the show's participation list in the weeks before the show.

The reason given for U-2's absence was that tasked elsewhere in the war against terror, the U-2 being among 13 other aircraft also including three aircraft from the Netherlands armed forces as well as a number of Danish and other American aircraft.

Also on the list was a number of aircraft, which went unserviceable, or had technical too close to the show dates among them was the French Aerobatic display team, the Patrouille de France.

Their Alpha Jet aircraft were the subject of a Europe-wide grounding of this type just days before the show. Other aircraft with technical problems included the elderly Lockheed Starfighters of Italian air force and one of the Royal Navy's new Merlin helicopters.

A number of aircraft booked for the show were missing because of budgetary constraints either by the aircraft owners or from national governments unable to afford the cost of sending their aircraft to the show or the greatly heightened insurance costs required since the September 11 attacks last year.

Among them was an example of the famous Canberra jet bomber as well as a number of light and historic aircraft.

The Ukrainian Air Force sited a lack of crew experience for its cancellation this year. The Ukrainians had been expected to bring a Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, a Tupolev Tu-22M3 and an Il-76 transport aircraft, however the package was cancelled.

Much time and effort was spent on trying to reverse this decision but to no avail. The Ukrainian State Secretary finally confirmed the cancellation close to show time.

Air Tattoo Spokeswoman Patti Heady explained: "For any air arm operations must come first.

"If an air force says it will participate in March and then something happens in June, military operations come first. We understand how disappointed some enthusiasts were about now-shows, however airshow organisers are totally in the hands of air forces.

"It is unfortunate that some operators are unable to pay insurance but it is important to ensure that the airshow is as safe and secure as possible."

The website announcement also includes the coups the Air Tattoo team achieved, among them the UK debut of aircraft from the Lithuanian Air Force, who nearly cancelled their appearance because of budgetary constraints but the RIAT team undertook accomm-odation costs to ensure the armed force's participation.

The same thing also happened to the Canadian Armed Forces Airbus A310 transport aircraft but the situation was again remedied with the RIAT team undertaking accommodation costs.

Meanwhile the Italian Air Force Alenia G-222 transport plane, which was involved in a landing accident during show finally left on Tuesday, October 1.

A team from Italy was flown specifically to re-build the damaged aircraft, a process that took nearly three months.