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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
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.
For the audience - we love airplanes and love seeing them. I personally prefer the ground portion of air shows, where I can see and sometimes touch the airplanes up close, talk to the pilots and engineers, and generally have a nice day outside :). The aerial component is impressive too, depending on the show. Sometimes it's a bit drawn out.
For the organizers, typically it's a mix of profit and also organizer enthusiasm - a LOT of air show is basically hard-working volunteers.
For the participants, depends - the private entries are there for fun and visibility and showpersonship, cammarederie etc. The armed forces are there to promote and recruit and invoke patriotism and show off and impress.
Ultimately though, if airplanes aren't your kink, you probably won't emotionally / internally understand and that's ok. It's like world rally championship or formula 1 or anything redbull does, a risky entertaining spectacle.
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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'm totally in agreement that armed forces are there for reasons you described. But an "air show" is a massive and sometimes separate Venn diagram. There are air shows where main thing is thousands of private airplanes coming from across the country to be together and meet up and have fun.
Put it other way, if armed forces decided it's not worth the recruitment investment and pulled out, air shows would still happen :). For most sizes air shows, the biplane aerobatic stunt done by a crazy local 50 year old real estate agent, is way more fun than the c5 galaxy transporter showing "short takeoff" :-)
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?
Air force, Navy and Marines have many display teams in addition to the two everyone knows. E.g. there's an F-35 display team and an F-22 display team. Usually they fly single though.
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It's not (just) my perception, most socially aware people would interpret the sign off: > So in response you select the most naive take? As well as your reply to me now, as having an unduly negative tone... at least, given the lack of substance or importance. (Ironically, I have less of hang up on meaningful arguments delivered with edge than most people.)
They're being rude, but right. Burying your head in the sand is not an intellectually gratifying response to barbazoo's comment, and the actual meat of their answer ("because they're cool") is obviously incorrect. Both are unprofessional comments, but only the original was dishonest. The "too many comments" shtick is a thought terminating cliche that shouldn't be encouraged on HN.
The military participates in airshows because it's good for morale, because it helps showcase capabilities, because it's good PR for military expenditures, and because it's good for recruitment. All of these effects are mostly because it's cool.
The other people flying in airshows are flying there because they love aviation and because it's cool (not so much the money :)
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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.
I cant wait to pay for that with my tax dollars.
Deficit spending leading to an ever rising debt is the source of continued spending. When Debt/GDP grows, we're spending ever more money that we don't have.
Total Debt:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
Total Debt/GDP
I 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.
I think these ejection seats work in more or less any orientation. I am more surprised that they didn't immediately blow up or lose control after colliding. Or even that the crew took that long to eject.
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?
If the Internet is to be believed they're not actually more expensive than an F/A-18, and as far as military aircraft go.. not the most expensive. But a ~$150M accident is nothing to sneeze at.
That maneuver they were attempting looks WILD. Would have been amazing to have pulled of. Or, perhaps to have regularly pulled off until today. I'm guessing that must be some sort of vectored thrust trickery.
They weren’t attempting anything, just repositioning for the next pass. They were flying away from the audience. They lost track of each other.