YOUR coverage on Monday failed to convey the total chaos of RIAT's arrangements for the public this past weekend.

The show was widely publicised across the country with big name sponsors like Waitrose.

Are the organisers as unimaginative as the planners of Brighton and Hove who failed to envisage 250,000 people coming to the Fat Boy Slim beach party?

I came with my son from Brighton and stayed overnight near Oxford. Not only was the traffic policing and route marking inadequate, but the pathetic attempts at security (just one gate) and another couple of hours' wait were too much to be tolerated.

We left, minutes before the accident you mention delayed further flying. If we had stayed we might have seen a couple of hours flying for our efforts of perhaps 10 hours of queueing.

If this is the level of security that has to be employed at such events, then it seems that Bin Laden has won.

Any imaginative terrorist armed with a surface to air missile could have wreaked havoc from well beyond the airfield and would have got away with it.

Sure, we expect the unexpected at airshows like weather problems, and the rare accident.

But everything here could have been anticipated.

The organisers are either stupid or contemptuous of the public or greedy for the estimated £2.5 million gate money.

The Farnborough Airshow takes place this coming weekend.

The public should be warned not to attend if they don't want to face similar queueing hell.

GERRY WOOLF

Westmeston Avenue

Brighton

Sussex