The Navy has grounded all its air demonstration teams while it investigates the collision of two E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft at Gunfighter Skies in Idaho last week. The Blue Angels are not affected. The other teams affected include the F/A-18F Rhino and F-35C Lightning II teams. It’s not clear how long the pause will be, but shows in Miami and Dayton could be affected. They can still go on static display and do flypasts but there will be no turnin’ and burnin’ until the Navy knows what went wrong in Idaho. Two Growlers came together during a tactical demonstration at Mountain Home Air Force Base on May 17. All four crew ejected safely. Meanwhile, it has also been announced the RAF Red Arrows demo team will fly a seven-ship formation show during their tour of the U.S. and into the future to conserve engine time.
The RAF said Friday that because they can no longer get replacement engines for their BAE Hawk T1 jets, the curtailment will stretch their service lives to their planned retirement in 2030. The RAF said the smaller formation will “support the sustainable management of the fleet and prepare the team for a transition to a future aircraft type.” The replacement plane has not been announced, but the U.K. government has said there is “no threat” to the continued existence of the popular team. The team will fly nine-ship formations for a few special events, including a display to mark the 250th birthday of the U.S. in New York on July 4.
The announcement came a week after the Canadian government announced that 2026 will be the last year for the Snowbirds demo team to fly their CT-114 Tutor jets. The government did say that the Tutors will be replaced with the turboprop CT-157 Siskin II but not until the 2030s and the team will be stood down until then.
Ignoring the accident, without measurable ROI in terms of securing fresh meat for deployment – I see no purpose in turning and burning at all.
Of course all of this woohoo and kaboom is good for entertaining the crowds at an airshow but in essence its a whole bunch of risking very expensive weaponry while burning a whole truckload of money that may well be better invested elsewhere.
In uniform I did dog and pony exercises, capabilities demos, displays at airshows; they did not announce determinism, commitment, or passion. They did provide easy access to intel, capabilities, and leads for our adversaries.
In addition to “…risking very expensive weaponry while burning a whole truckload of money…” flight demonstrations cost Services their high demand/low quantity personnel:
the Blue Angels take the best Naval Aviators and maintainers out of the fight for years.
Obviously you are not considering the international airshows like Paris, Farnborough, Dubai, Singapore and more where Russian and other adversaries display their military aircraft.
“Fresh meat for deployment.” It warms my heart to know my years of military service, including the 8 months I spent in Afghanistan, are so appreciated. Two kind words to you, sir.
Glad I was able to assist in your quest to find something to feel offended about, today.
Bob, everyone brings his or her own baggage to every conversation. Jason’s probably contains a washout or just flat disqualification from some military program he really wanted to join. In psychological terms I think it’s called “sour grapes”.😜
Flight demonstration teams are symbolic, not pragmatic. They are a display of power, wealth, training, precision, standards and of national and political capability. Short of having the military powers parading their technical prowess by parading down “MAIN STREET” with missiles, tanks, APVs’ Laser cannons and drones I feel having “air demonstration teams” is a good, smart way to announce to the Western and whole world the determinism, commitment, passion and capability of our armed forces and our resolute bulwark to maintain national freedom for those who have the same desire.
I have seen some military demonstrations over the last 30 years. some of the demonstration flights were iffy, not very precise. the Air Force demo teams seemed to do better than the Marines and Navy. However, I have seem bad demo from the AF as well. Something tells me these guys didn’t practice with the precision as required for the performance in front of a crowd. I’ve seen RV teams that probably had more practice than the military, except for the Thunderbird and Blue Angels.