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US to stop "fly overs"

Daveroo

Daveroo

Members +
I havent seen anything offical on this myself,so we'll see if its true or not,but i met a guy yesterday,he is the brother of one of my nieghbors,,his name is shawn,or sean,and he is the infomation (?) officer at Beale afb,he runs the website,facebook,answers email,deals with the public and press,and he was in charge of the airshow in 2011,he said a dicission earlier this week was made to stop all fly overs except for any F22 raptor comtments,and airshow flights that are not military airshows(open houses) will have very limited military participation.i asked NASCAR included? he said yes,baseball,football,nascar all sports ect...i seem to remember hearing this before...so we'll see
 
sounds perfectly plausable ... think of how much money would be saved on fuel if they didnt have to fly over every sporting event!
 
Sometimes the “cost/benefit” is less tangible than the simple cost of fuel and maintenance. First of all, flying airplanes is hard, and requires constant practice, which they do anyway. Second, there is a return in terms of service advertisement and pride, intangible though it may be. I can't think of a good reason for such a decision, but I'm not at all surprised, which is as far as I'll go in that direction...
 
Every fly over is simply a waypoint of a larger training flight. The fly overs themselves are NOT the reason for the flight, in any way, shape or form. They are included as a patriotic advertisement and as a training excersize, since the flyover is on a split second schedule. This was discussed before, as a fuel saving point, and was rejected, as it would be minimal. Any talk of it now is strictly political, nothing else.
 
i like planes as much as anyone else here. but if america is trying to be less war like, then that's a good thing imo
 
In my former life I was the on-site representative for my agency at the SERTOMA air show at Lafayette, LA in October, 2001. I was there because the Blue Angels were to perform at the show, and both CNO and the Blues' commander were concerned about possible terrorist activity or an attempt to disrupt their routine at the show. Coming as it did about a month after 9-11, they wanted one of our people on the ground before and during the show to ensure there were no threats. The pressure was really on. One of the most exhausting weeks of my life, thousand and one questions, what about this and that, had to pry information out of some agencies or departments, lots of wheedling with them, etc etc - get going at 6AM and fall into bed around 11PM, to repeat the next day. One thing it did do was give me an insight into the support these teams require. Transport aircraft (besides Fat Albert); billeting for the support staff (dozens have to be put up in hotel rooms) as well as the pilots; feeding all of them; transportation to and from billeting, usually free for the pilots but the maintainers' rides have to be paid for; my costs, for being there to oversee their security - I figured around $5,000 for that, including wear and tear on govt vehicle, gas, salary, billeting, meals, mementos handed out as inducements, expendables, etc etc - had to bring in ground light units from NASJRB New Orleans by truck, Lafayette RAP didn't have enough for maintenance and in particular security; fuel and parts for the aircraft; and so on. This stuff all adds up. Try repeating that for every show they do over a season and it runs into a hefty tab. Flyovers are indeed just a part of a properly-planned cross-country navigation exercise, or some other routine event. These East and West coast aircraft demonstration teams (AF had A-10, F-15 and F-16 teams for E and W coasts) are a small part of the above-described chaos for the BAs, and these teams have been curtailed or eliminated altogether; sending AF aircraft to be static displays at non-mil airshows has been done away with because there are remote billeting and support costs associated with that, as well as maintenance for an "unnecessary" flight (to the bean-counters). So many hidden costs. Of course, what I described above pales in comparison to what it costs to support one POTUS flight on AF1, along with transporting SS and their vehicles to remote locations. OUCH!:mixedsmi:
 
<legend style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left; ">*** IMPORTANT INFORMATION***</legend>
As many of you are well aware, the U.S. Air Force, along with the rest of the Department of Defense, is being forced to make some difficult decisions during this time of severe fiscal austerity to ensure we are providing appropriate support to the Combatant Commanders while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. One of the decisions that the Air Force has made is to sponsor only one single-ship demonstration team for the 2012 air show season, scaling back from the six teams we've historically sponsored - A-10 East & West, F-16 East & West, F-15E and F-22.
For the 2012 season, the Air Force is only sponsoring the F-22 demonstration team which will perform at up to 20 shows. In addition to the F-22 demonstration team, the USAF Thunderbirds are set to complete a full season next year. Their schedule will be announced Dec. 4, 2011 and after that date can be found here:http://thunderbirds.airforce.com/schedule.html.
Reducing the number of single-ship demonstration teams will allow Air Combat Command to reallocate more than 900 sorties to their wings so they can maximize their flying hours for combat readiness training, offsetting some of the reduction they've seen in flying hours. Most importantly, reallocating those sorties will provide an increase in more than 25 combat-ready fighter pilots.
Maintaining an Air Force presence at events throughout the country to highlight the tremendous work of our Airmen remains a top priority.
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The Department of Defense authorizes the Air Force to participate in flyovers for those recognition events held in direct support of the five patriotic holidays (Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, POW/MIA Day and Veterans Day) and for aviation-related events, such as air shows and airport dedications. All non-aviation related events are processed as Exceptions-to-Policy and they cannot show preferential treatment to any single organization to include specific charities, or must be incidental to the non-aviation related event. Non-aviation requests may include sporting and other community-wide events but there must be a military connection on the ground during the time of the flyover and it must aide the Air Force in meeting our messaging and recruiting needs.​
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