Goodbye Airshow...

At least most of the performers that is. ACC has cut the budget and if you're lucky you may see a F/A-22 perform next year...maybe. But there will be no Warthog, Viper, or Strike demonstrations next year. SAD!


Read the rest here

Right, that's it - I'm moving to a hot and sandy country next year otherwise I won't get to see them in action.

(Don't ban me - I'm kidding)

Its still not enough. Tunderbirds need to be cut down a bit too. The AF is starting to ask where we can cut cost. Its going to be bad for the next few or so years.

Saddened to read that news Panther.


Wheels

If the AF would stop spending money on stupid stuff, they are so wasteful it's sad!

Yeah like the cRaptor and that stupid F-35...

Gotta start cutting somewhere for those trillions

That's too bad - looks like I'll be doing less photography in the future...

Funny, I had the same thought... What a way to learn your camera just became near useless for airshows.

Looks like I will be altering my list to Santa a bit since a new camera is not nearly as important now.


Wheels

wow, BAD news

Believe me, the AF wastes tons of money in areas that have zero to do with planes.



The Jedi Master

While they are at it, get rid of Tops in Blue, Airman Magazine, staff cars for officers, Generals' aides, the Thunderbirds, and the USAF Band. Oh, and stop sponsoring NASCAR...

Or, they could cut stuff Airmen actually want/use/need; like reducing our educational budgets, medical/dental cutbacks, retirement benefits.

Aren't the ICBM nukes administered and maintained by the USAF? If yes then there can be some serious cost savings done by getting rid of most of them and just keeping about 150 or so.

another stab at the F-22.

F-16s, A-10s are all being deployed out, while the F-22 that was supposed to replace them remains home as an Airshow piece (when its not being a static on the ground display.)

Wow, if thats happening on your side of the pond then I guess we'll wave bye-bye to the Tornado role demo, Typhoon solo and the hawk display. Still, at least we're left with the Mighty King Air, Tucano and Tutor..

I wonder if the navy is gonna cut their demo's...

Well, the navy could trim some fat.

After all, the scale of the US navy still reflects the needs for a navy reminiscent of the Cold War. And as we all know, the Cold War has been over for quite a while now.

Maybe no more flyovers during sporting events?

At least when they're used in movies they have to pay for the fuel and such used.



The Jedi Master

Maybe the owner/owners of the sports stadium or the league involved pay a fee for the fly over?

The F-22 is not a replacement for F-16's or A-10's.

It is an Air Dominance fighter and therefore not needed AT ALL in any conflict we are currently engaged in since the Taliban doesn't have a an air force.

Probably not because when you see the flyover you just see the 30 seconds of it. But before and after a flyby the pilots are performing BFM and other flight training. Those pilots are still getting their training, with just a 30 flyby. The demo pilots do nothing other than burn jp8 for the pleasure of the crowd. It makes sence that they're being cut but it sucks.

Having worked with many Air Forces as media guy, this is just the logical (if sad) conclusion to a trend having started 2008, constantly less budget for PR work.

Fly Over's Are paid for.

Its not just planes, pilots, but you have a spotter/controller at the stadium guiding inbound planes.

there was video about the "Behind the scenes of a Fly Over" or something for a College sports show..

still, the planes that have been around, are out doing the work, the planes that our tax dollars pay for...

Meanwhile the F-22 which we all paid for, has been sitting around doing nothing, you cant tell me that they cant find something for them to do besides windex the canopy every day.

hrmm, Supercruise, Stealth..... 5th Gen Computer..... Recon.. Air to ground.. who cares.

Put on a Demo, make the bad guys stare in awe as we eliminate them as threats.

I haven't seen much about F-15Cs being used in Afghanistan lately, and I wonder if they're not being used much because they don't have an air-to-ground capability and are therefore are not really needed.

If that's the case, I'd say the same would apply to the F-22. Sure, the F-22 has some recon and ELINT capability, but it's not really designed for that as a primary mission, so it would make more sense to use those aircraft that are, if you don't need a fighter at the same time.

Get rid of the AF One fleet, and make the entire government fly economy coach or take a cab like everyone else.

Having a close friend who works at Tyndall AFB where all F22 pilots are trained I can say with some confidence that the above post is absurd in the extreme.

yeah it was... i know they do maintenance and stuff.... it was sarcasm

If they're doing their jobs, you'll never see them there either

More sarcasm? They do more than "maintenance and stuff" they routinely hand all comers their a$$ in aerial combat.

I want to wait and see what happens with China and their carrier fleet.

If they do as good a job on their nuke-carriers as they did my g940, we've got nothing to worry about.

'Oh, wow that GAU-8/A Avenger really does sound gre..'

With 1 aircraft carrier, and a 2nd in the docks, China is no naval threat to the US.
It is safe to assume that China wants to assert their power in their back yard, and not patrol the seas in a display of military muscle.

The US navy could substantially reduce their force, and still be the 1st naval power.

Plenty to keep some demo teams flying. But at the end of the day, those are not necessary. Impressive, yes. Other than that, there's not much value to it.

I hope by the time my son is old enough to go to air shows with me that they will have some tac demo stuff again. When I found out we were having a boy I was really looking forward to taking him to stuff like that. I guess there are still warbirds.

Agree on all these points.

Either way, it's a new world we live in and that new world requires less of a Cold War type of military.

This was clearly an uninformed comment.

-Skater

The spotter/controller for the flyover is a full time ANG pilot and doesn't make any more money for doing this, he's on the clock. He makes his day to day salary, but gets to go to a college football game. He wouldn't even need a rental car because we have "Blue Steel" which is a base owned vehicle to drive to South Bend. That video you can hear the inbound pilots mention something about "12 Mile" which is a BFM range where they took off and practiced at before doing the flyby.

Before everyone goes crazy about just the USAF, it's the entire military being looked at to cut costs. There's talk of seriously cutting back Army ground units, mothballing a lot of our Naval fleet, and cutting USAF units and projects.

What's really sucking personally, my ANG base hasn't had an airshow since 1999. We finally scheduled one for Sept 2012 and are already planning for it...and now this. Ugh. I guess it'll mostly just be A-10C flyovers...from our own planes.

Well said!!!

We keep losing people, but still they want us to do the same/more work. I have 9 people in my shop now and we run 24/7, 3 people per shift. We'll get 4 people back in about a week, but we are still low manned!

Damn and you need 3 for tank entry... WOW!

But I feel you pain, we have 4 on days here, doesn't leave much room for tank entry and H70 response. But we're different given that we're contractors.

I thought you guys had a packed house Panther! That sucks also, we'll be working 12's the last 2 weeks of December....Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, now bend over and take it with no lube!

Don't count on it. When the choice comes between the military and the welfare state the welfare state always wins. Just look at Europe, but you can cycle that history back through to the Roman Empire also.

No they took a 50 man shop to just a 22 man shop as contractors. They say we can do more with less and be more productive... But they're complaining now that we can't turn aircraft quick enough...

Gotta love that, we'll have a total of 13 people in the shop, another 3 people farmed out and about 4 working with the reserves, but they still count towards our manning WTF! We should have 20 people in the shop. This doing more with less isn't going to work that long, some people are already starting to say FU Air Force and getting out. My troop just failed his 4th PT test and he did it on purpose. He thought this base was going to be better then his last, he was wrong, this base will drive you insane for maintanence.

Sounds like the military is going through the same trend of reducing manpower and increasing efficiency that the private sector has been doing since 2008.

I work 12 hr shifts now and have for the last 3 years, we only have 5 people to run 24/7 365s day a year Its not just the military. 12 hr shifts are awesome when you have a freeze which starts up on the 18th of december and runs all the way to Jan2nd where NO work onthe datacenter floors are permitted. trust me really sucks ass.

The Pilots dont get paid, but the School/League has to pay the Military, whether it be direct or some form of "meterial offering".

This is when we start importing Airshow Performers from China.

The problem is everyone can agree that cutbacks in costs/spending have to be made, but there's been no cutbacks in the missions. You wanna do more with less? That only works to a point. After that, you have to do less with less.
Let's face it, if all US forces were stationed in CONUS we would have decent staffing levels for the same costs...except the money would all be spent in the US and none of it overseas.
While I'm not thrilled with the idea of bases being major job centers, the fact is that the communities surrounding them do depend on them most of the time. So I can accept to a degree that my tax money is taking a long road towards helping support communities in other parts of the country, but not that it helps other countries and companies overseas! I don't need my taxes going to pay some German small business that runs janitorial work for Ramstein or whatever.



The Jedi Master

Either way, the cutbacks will either occur voluntarily or involuntarily. The former is much more desirable to the latter.

The only material offering we get from schools and events are usually some extra tickets to the event (but not always). We do flyovers to promote our base/unit for pride and have some possible future recruits from the fans that say "wow, those jets looked cool!".

It's the same if we park some jets at an airshow for static displays. Nobody gets anything extra, just your normal day's pay but you get to sit at an airshow and answer questions about the jet or your base...and get treated like a rockstar.