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Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
141–150 of 278 posts
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#142What are Growlers doing performing aerobatic maneuvers at air shows? They have tens of millions in specialized extra equipment on board. Seems like a poor use of taxpayer money. Send regular F-18s, not the rare expensive ones that look the same.
When you have exorbitant privilege you tend to use it.
A better term might be "abuse" rather than "use." Some people do, some people don't, and it says a lot about their character.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#143Four people ejected.
What is the purpose of the second person in such plane, at the air show?
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#144I don’t know anything about anything but it feels kind of amazing that all four ejected with good looking parachutes given the orientation of the conglomerated plane.
75% of out-of-envelope ejections are fatal. A spinning aircraft that just started making out with another plane is definitely OOE. Those 4 pilots are incredibly lucky, assuming they all survived (looks like it?)
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crashes are rare. Exposure to the civilian for what their tax dollars are paying for, opportunities for pilots to become more skilled and train other pilots for advanced maneuvers. Things like that. Overall there’s not too much meat on the bone as far as criticisms are concerned.
Tell that to the people that died or got horribly burned at Ramstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramstein_air_show_disaster
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Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#146What are Growlers doing performing aerobatic maneuvers at air shows? They have tens of millions in specialized extra equipment on board. Seems like a poor use of taxpayer money. Send regular F-18s, not the rare expensive ones that look the same.
the pilots need to fly hours to keep their pilot rating anyways. So aside from the slightly elevated risk to the civilian observers, and the occasional risk due to maneuvers (I think they doing something particularly showy in this case?), the extra cost to the taxpayer do this is ~nil.
There are two expensive holes in the ground that do not support your supposition.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
the pilots need to fly hours to keep their pilot rating anyways. So aside from the slightly elevated risk to the civilian observers, and the occasional risk due to maneuvers (I think they doing something particularly showy in this case?), the extra cost to the taxpayer do this is ~nil.
There are two expensive holes in the ground that do not support your supposition.
Only if there's a significant difference in risk between training flight and air show flight.
Otherwise there's always a near constant ever present risk of uncontrolled unintended landings with expensive repair and replacement costs.
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too many comments are trying to overanalyze, or just show off their insightful cynicism. We do airshows because they are cool . Lots of us love airplanes. Humans do all kinds of activities for entertainment that are not strictly justifiable returns on investment. I hope we never get that boring, though every year we do seem to go that direction.
I would say it's part of the US culture. It's not a thing in Europe (one reason might be practical reasons. We have less space to do it safely).
There are many airshows in Europe, including the world’s largest military airshow (RIAT in the UK).
UK list, for example: https://www.air-shows.org.uk/2025/04/uk-airshow-calendar-202...
Rest of Europe: https://www.air-shows.org.uk/2025/04/european-airshow-calend...
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
#149Four people ejected. What is the purpose of the second person in such plane, at the air show?
Flight time for the electronic warfare officer?
Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
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