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Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

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Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#51

Post by justin66 »

operatingthetan wrote: post #47
rootusrootus wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

No. They are for recruitment and showing other nations what is on hand in case they want to mess with them. >insightful cynicism. So in response you select the most naive take?

They work for recruitment because... they're cool.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#53

Post by BoorishBears »

operatingthetan wrote: post #47
rootusrootus wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

No. They are for recruitment and showing other nations what is on hand in case they want to mess with them. >insightful cynicism. So in response you select the most naive take?

I don't understand this comment. If you want to be the minimally charitable + maximally accurate commenter your tone suggests, then you're also wrong.

It's a superset of the reasons you poorly articulated, and those reasons would include the fact it's cool. Cool things can help both recruitment and morale, and the US military seems to recognize that: https://armedforcessports.defense.gov/Sports/Esports/

If this is just meant to be another comment on the situation which comes with an implicit grain of salt, then the browbeating doesn't make sense.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#54

Post by smcin »

rootusrootus wrote: post #46
ElProlactin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Healthcare is expensive because we buy fancy airplanes? It seems at least as likely to do with the incredibly high salaries we pay doctors. And the fact that we use like 50% more healthcare services than a typical single-payer society.

What's your source for claiming "[the US] uses like 50% more healthcare services than a typical single-payer society"?

Personal take-home pay for physicians is 8-10% of total US healthcare spending ($5tr). (or 20%/$1.11t for "physician and clinical services" overall which includes doctors, clinical staff, admin, and overhead costs.)

US total spending on pharmaceuticals is $1 tr; net spending on outpatient prescription drugs is $600b.

The DoD's total spending is $961.6b for FY 2026.

There's little argument against reforming both military spending and healthcare spending in the US, but (as Scott Galloway says) it's awfully hard to find a prominent politician who vocally supports reforming both these (not one at the expense of the other). So, the out-of-control spending/borrowing will continue.

Anyway, as to this crash, all other considerations apart, E/A-18Gs (electronic warfare planes) cost 60% more than F-18s. Who authorized flying them in an airshow?

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#55

Post by operatingthetan »

BoorishBears wrote: post #53
operatingthetan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They are for recruitment and showing other nations what is on hand in case they want to mess with them. >insightful cynicism. So in response you select the most naive take?

I don't understand this comment. If you want to be the minimally charitable + maximally accurate commenter your tone suggests, then you're also wrong. It's a superset of the reasons you poorly articulated, and those reasons would include the fact it's cool. Cool things can help both recruitment and morale, and the US military seems to recognize that: https://armedforcessports.defense.gov/Sports/Esports/ If this is ju…

Don't make things up or project based on your perception of tone.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#56

Post by ridgeguy »

amelius wrote: post #6

I wonder how you can make the decision to eject in such a short timespan.

One has to be trained to do it, the untrained tendency is to wait too long. There's a USAF film on Youtube titled "Ejection Decision" that discusses this and shows how little time there is to make that choice.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#57

Post by vkou »

barbazoo wrote: post #12
avalys wrote: post #3

These are pretty expensive and specialized electronic warfare planes that are identical to a regular F18 in aerodynamic performance. Sucks to lose two of them for an airshow display. Isn’t that what the Blue Angels are for?

What is the real purpose of airshows anyway? It always seems like very elevated risk for very little reward but I might just be missing what the reward is.

The purpose of airshows is to boost recruitment of cannon fodder for imperial conquests and to remind us that we are strong and the enemy is weak.

Same reason as for military parades.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#58

Post by nearlyepic »

justin66 wrote: post #51
operatingthetan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They are for recruitment and showing other nations what is on hand in case they want to mess with them. >insightful cynicism. So in response you select the most naive take?

They work for recruitment because... they're cool.

Sure, but the purpose is recruitment. They wouldn't do them if they didn't get anything out of them, and what they get out of them is PR and boosts to recruitment efforts.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#59

Post by jcgrillo »

dbcurtis wrote: post #42
binary132 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thought, but those cockpit modules are really designed to maximize the odds of safe ejection, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they consider the possibility of failure and escape as part of the stunt design. Still, it’s amazing everything worked out, especially at that low of an altitude.

Do we know if the pilots are OK? Yes, ejection can save your life, but even in a best-case scenario the forces on the human body are incredibly ugly. I know a former combat-rated RAF pilot that had to eject from a Harrier because of a low-altitude bird strike. After 6 months in the infirmary, he emerged 2cm shorter, combat rating gone forever.

Arms and legs can take a serious beating too. Airplane cockpits are pretty tight spaces, and to be explosively shot out of one with little notice is.. yikes.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#60

Post by kube-system »

operatingthetan wrote: post #47
rootusrootus wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

No. They are for recruitment and showing other nations what is on hand in case they want to mess with them. >insightful cynicism. So in response you select the most naive take?

Even the airshows that the military flies at are often primarily civilian shows. The military clearly has recruiting and power demonstration goals but airshows in general exist outside of those goals. The majority of the aviators at these shows are civilian hobbyists.
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