Newer jet pilot here ( and also FS pilot). I concur with the notion that 5 in the air is too many for an event like this. Skill levels vary tremendously, and even more so among spotters. I personally don't see what pilots or spectators get out of a show where there that many planes in the air at once. Better to fly fewer, display quality flights with each plane/pilot having the airspace to show off the plane and the skills. Especially at a jet event where everyone is basically bingo fuel, and managing complex, large, and expensive aircraft. God knows, you'd never see FS doing an airshow like this.

And it is not as if these are not dangerous aircraft. If the Hawk (or whatever it was) had been 0.5 sec further back than it was, the -16 would have struck it mid-turn with the momentum velocity of the junk/fuel headed towards the pits. I have to assume that since neither pilot nor spotter saw the plane where it was, right in front of them, they would not have seen it further to their left.

I see comments on how good the flightline management was at this event. That's nice but it is irrelevant to what is happening in the air. As any FS knows, you live or die by separation, airspace, and time.

I realize that this seems anathema to these jet-fests, where the pilots all expect and demand air time, and might not attend if they could not get a slot, but that pressure is not worth the ramifications of a serious accident. Our hobby is in enough peril as it is.

I am not pointing fingers here, wasn't there, and understand JOK to be a well-organized event. But when I see and hear that video, I see low-level chaos, leading to a MAC that could have been avoided. Mostly, I feel badly for the pilots and spotters who lost their aircraft in this manner.