What 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.
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.
Something that seems interesting to me is that they all ejected at nearly the identical time. I'm curious if those systems are automated in case of scenarios like an unconscious pilot. If so, there may be automated clearance/angle systems, but that's speculation on top of speculation.
Yeah it's pretty incredible, the way they came together the plane on top came pretty close to blocking the canopy of the bottom one, if it had gone a bit differently those pilots could have had nowhere to go but into the bottom of the other aircraft!
The aircraft appear to have become "stuck" to each other perhaps due to aerodynamic forces similar to how a piece of paper gets stuck to a car windshield (probably something to do with one of the Bernoullis). There wasn't much of an impact to cause a destructive event such as compressor stall. Perhaps the pilots were waiting to see if the aircraft would become un-stuck, or to get clear airspace into which they could eject?
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.
You're generally limited to two ejections barring any disqualifying health issues. The military doesn't like to throw away its personnel investments when they've gained some hard won experience.
They impart significant g forces (~15g) in line with the spine. Compression fractures are common, and most people permanently lose height as a result of the event. The goal is to provide a result better than death.
Admittedly I have nowhere near the flight hours, training, or expertise of these pilots, but having flown airplanes myself I can totally imagine in an off-nominal situation (which I have been in before) conscious focus is fully on flying the airplane even if your rote lizard brain is procedurally going through the motions of pulling the ejection handles or otherwise responding to the emergency. My instructor's words--he was a helicopter pilot (Hueys and Chinooks) in the Vietnam war with some 20k hrs logged in complex aircraft, jets, etc. since so I know for certain he knew wtf he was talking about--going through my head "do not ever stop flying the airplane". In this case, my conscious focus would be to stomp one of those rudder pedals as hard as I could to try to recover from the spin, even if I was also simultaneously yelling "eject" or whatever you're told to into the intercom and pulling the handles. But I haven't ever been trained to eject from an aircraft, or maybe my instinctive predilections would select me out of the training regimen these pilots go through.. who knows
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?
This actually begs the question...why the fuck would they use THESE for an airshow? They're aesthetically identical to F18 from a ground silhouette perspective. They blew through some really expensive planes from a much smaller fleet for a pony show that any regular F18 could've been part of.
They do training all day every day in these planes. Air shows are probably less exciting than the stuff they practice to do. Also, while they a generically '18's' they are EA-18g's and possibly have enough differences to require maintaining a separate NATOPs check from the other variants. (never flown one so I don't actually know though :). Either way, other than the blue angles who can't be everywhere and don't represent the diversity of platforms out in the fleet, there really aren't dedicated airshow aircraft out there.
Yah.. but between the Iran war and this, we've taken some EW losses. And it's not like this is one of the capabilities that we have massively overprovisioned.
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.
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.
You know what's cooler? A functional social safety net. Public services that work are lit. High quality education is absolutely dope. Universal healthcare is smoking hot.
Displays of flying death machines to glorify the state are BORING.
There are a LOT of air shows where military airplanes are a small or zero component.
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" :-)
Yah.. the roaring sound and precision of military aerial display teams can't be denied, and are an awesome experience. But it's something you see someone doing in a Pitts or Extra or maybe even a Citabria or 150 that makes you question your understanding of the laws of physics :D
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.
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.
I mean, also statistically, it is bound to inspire young people who potentially might be interested in picking an aviation related future. Maybe they will invent something they otherwise wouldn't have.
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.
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 :)
Again, they're not even right if we're going maximum correctness here...
Maximally correct answer is "there are many reasons with complex interplay", and those reasons do include the fact it's cool! Being cool has interplay with morale, recruitment, and even their ham-fisted attempt at referencing geopolitics.
They'd be "more right" if they said in addition, but they just straight up said "No."
(Also where did you read a too many comments shtick?)
It's worth questioning what the costs are, though. I love military aviation more than the average Joe, and seeing these jets pushed to their limits is pretty gratifying. But this isn't a football/soccer pasttime, the E/A-18 is an expensive F/A-18 block and the aviators are an asset of national security that take decades of experience and millions of taxpayer dollars to train. The losses sustained by the Blue Angels alone is stomach-churning, and they're widely known as one of the most professional groups around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels#Team_accidents_and...
The net benefit is marketing, and little else. As much as I enjoy watching airshow jet maneuvers, I have to acknowledge that the USSR only sent their Sukhoi pilots on-tour as a publicity stunt to increase their exports. Same goes for the US, France and China.
I'm sure there's some bean-counter calculus involving recruitment, PR, demonstration of capabilities, they were going to be doing training flights anyway so why not do a few in public, etc. but they're more rationalisations rather than reasons.
I hope it stays that way too. A world where we take everything away unless it fits into the 5 year ROI spreadsheet sounds dreadful. In any case there'll a long tail of nth-order outcomes that we can't simply reduce down to a risk-reward calculation.
There's probably some deep reason why humans just have a drive to show off their awesome stuff.
I remember going to an air show when I was 12 with a good friend. Walking through the C-5 and then seeing a thunderbirds display just captured my friends imagination in a way that’s hard to describe. He ended up becoming a Marine Aviator and basically started planning that path that day.
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.
For recruitment, awareness, to boost civilian confidence/engagement/support in the military as a whole. The blue angels and thunderbirds are the best of the best when it comes to air shows because the best pilots are used and they train extensively.
Presumably recruitment and PR for the air force, and morale for the aviators, as they can show off their training and skills to friends, family and the general public.
Acting as a sales platform for aircraft manufacturers is also a thing. The RAF Red Arrows are probably responsible for a load of sales of the Hawk advanced trainer they use in their displays.
It kind of is a miracle when you think about what goes in to creating those machines, maintaining them, and learning to fly them so well, of course crashes notwithstanding.
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.
You can do advanced maneuvers without getting so close to another plane in some weird attempt at simulating a scenario that will never happen.
Did some cursory searches/math and it looks like about 1-2% of aerial shows in the US have a fatality (1-2 deaths annually with about 2000 shows on average over the last 20 years). If those numbers are correct (and they may very well not be as it’s a mix of LLM and Google quick searches) 1-2% doesn’t seem worth it.
Edit: I’m an idiot. .05-.1%. Seems a bit silly still but not as bad as I thought.
> You can do advanced maneuvers without getting so close to another plane in some weird attempt at simulating a scenario that will never happen.
That is likely true. However, it is a heck of a demonstration of pilot skill. The Blue Angels somewhat regularly post in-cockpit views of their airshow practice and it is wild how tight a formation they fly; I really recommend seeking out some of those videos, it is totally worth it. Well, for me at least :). It is not unheard of (but not common) for them to inadvertently make contact, since they fly like 18 inches apart, but given they have nearly identical vectors it does not often result in a crash.
You might want to double check that LLM... If theres 2000 shows and 1-2 deaths, that's 0.05%-0.1%. still too high, but given the simple math error I think the other numbers are probably suspect too
This is a question that comes up internally as well. It gets into questions like "Why do we fund the Thunderbirds etc". I will hold off on my 2c because the arguments are already covered!
Immediately after a show like this, yes, it looks foolish to lose 2 combat planes and almost 4 aircrew for a performative event. Looking at it more generally, it's a tradeoff.
All I know is I’m glad I don’t live in the world where this kind of reasoning dominates. All the greatest things I’ve seen in my life have been arguably pointless in this way.
Posturing, showing of your military capabilities towards the enemy. Raising morale (aka war propaganda) towards your own population.
Contrary to popular belief, war is mostly about public opinion, not raw strength. Even since (before) roman times, you almost never fight to the last man, you fight until you route the enemy.
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?
I'm reminded of a short video clip I saw a while back with a dollar-counter on-screen. Different kinds of weapons were fired, each one bigger and more expensive than the last, the counter spinning upwards all-the-while. And here's me thinking: man, just don't shoot two or three of those anti-aircraft missiles, give the cash to me, and I could buy a house and live comfortably with my family.
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.
Perhaps the internet price excludes the EW payload? Seems like a plane with a load of electronics gear and transmitters/antennas would cost more than the same plane sans that stuff?
I'm not sure on the history of why there's a Growler display team, but they regularly perform at air shows, even air shows where the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds are also performing. Their display isn't formation aerobatics, more a sort of fancy fly-by.
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.
That's good that all pilots ejected safely. But what if it fails? Still, losing two specialized aircraft during an airshow feels like very expensive, I doubt if it's really worth it to risks these pilots life on it
The US has over 10,000 military aircraft in service and thousands of spares sitting in storage. The US is quite arguably the only military that can casually absorb losses like these.
This specific aircraft is being phased out over the next several years. Assuming these still had some miles left on the airframe, they likely would have been put in cold storage a few years from now.
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.
The video, apart from the apparent loss of situation awareness by the following pilot, seems to show the leader making an aggressive left turn basically into the path of the other aircraft. I'm four hundred miles or so from the location but we've had some weird weather here today, and I've heard it was even more weird in Idaho. Reports of high wind speeds and gusts. I wondered if the lead aircraft had been hit by some sort of atmospheric event that pushed it into the path of the other when it happened to be too close to correct.
I don't think anything after the second jet's merge was deliberate. NASA's HARV is the only F/A-18 with a thrust vectoring exhaust designed for it, and it's doubtful that similar kit would go on an EW jet.
What's shown in the video appears to be some form of slipstreaming by the chase craft that causes them both to lose pitch authority, pulling up into a stall state and then a yaw tailslide.
Cue the development of a limpet drone that would be enough to take down one of these birds in a non-destructive way… although perhaps these ones in particular would be uniquely positioned to deal with such adversaries.
Since the negative PR effects of exploding planes undermine the intended positive promotional aspects of conducting air shows, we should probably just halt and save money, right?
Is there much of a way to recover from that kind of glomping? Kinda seems like the aerodynamics might hold them together (as the noses are somewhat pointed together), or with enough speed rip them apart chaotically since they're a bit skewed (which could be worse than ejecting early).
It seems pretty obvious that ejecting is the right choice either way, but it makes me wonder if there's any alternative in this kind of scenario.
Basically all modern fighters since the 1980s are aerodynamically unstable and require a computer to fly. A collision like this is almost certainly going to do major damage to the airframe (screwing up its aerodynamics) and maybe flight controls as well. I suspect the plane will be well outside the parameters that the flight controls software can deal with, making stable flight impossible.
Depending on how much damage was incurred during contact, since they were already flying predominantly the same direction & speed, at a higher altitude they might have uncoupled and regained controlled flight. Examples of more grievously damaged airplanes have landed in the past. I don't think they had any real hope if they stayed joined, tho.
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.
At this point you barely "make the decision". They train and train and train to the point where it's automatic as soon as they know there's no way to avoid the crash.
Tax dollars really don't pay for things in the US Federal Government.
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.
You're not wrong, but exorbitant deficit spending has its own dire consequences. (eventually) Not that I am telling you anything you don't already know.
What 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.
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.
Something that seems interesting to me is that they all ejected at nearly the identical time. I'm curious if those systems are automated in case of scenarios like an unconscious pilot. If so, there may be automated clearance/angle systems, but that's speculation on top of speculation.
Yeah it's pretty incredible, the way they came together the plane on top came pretty close to blocking the canopy of the bottom one, if it had gone a bit differently those pilots could have had nowhere to go but into the bottom of the other aircraft!
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.
The aircraft appear to have become "stuck" to each other perhaps due to aerodynamic forces similar to how a piece of paper gets stuck to a car windshield (probably something to do with one of the Bernoullis). There wasn't much of an impact to cause a destructive event such as compressor stall. Perhaps the pilots were waiting to see if the aircraft would become un-stuck, or to get clear airspace into which they could eject?
I actually looks like the vertical stabilizer of the lower plane got lodged into the fuselage of the other.
That’s my read as well, but I’m looking forward for an official analysis as things often aren’t as they appear.
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.
Ejection is often a career-ending event, unfortunately. Better than dying though.
You're generally limited to two ejections barring any disqualifying health issues. The military doesn't like to throw away its personnel investments when they've gained some hard won experience.
How so, because of the damage to the body?
They impart significant g forces (~15g) in line with the spine. Compression fractures are common, and most people permanently lose height as a result of the event. The goal is to provide a result better than death.
The pilots themselves initiated their ejections.
Admittedly I have nowhere near the flight hours, training, or expertise of these pilots, but having flown airplanes myself I can totally imagine in an off-nominal situation (which I have been in before) conscious focus is fully on flying the airplane even if your rote lizard brain is procedurally going through the motions of pulling the ejection handles or otherwise responding to the emergency. My instructor's words--he was a helicopter pilot (Hueys and Chinooks) in the Vietnam war with some 20k hrs logged in complex aircraft, jets, etc. since so I know for certain he knew wtf he was talking about--going through my head "do not ever stop flying the airplane". In this case, my conscious focus would be to stomp one of those rudder pedals as hard as I could to try to recover from the spin, even if I was also simultaneously yelling "eject" or whatever you're told to into the intercom and pulling the handles. But I haven't ever been trained to eject from an aircraft, or maybe my instinctive predilections would select me out of the training regimen these pilots go through.. who knows
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?
This actually begs the question...why the fuck would they use THESE for an airshow? They're aesthetically identical to F18 from a ground silhouette perspective. They blew through some really expensive planes from a much smaller fleet for a pony show that any regular F18 could've been part of.
They do training all day every day in these planes. Air shows are probably less exciting than the stuff they practice to do. Also, while they a generically '18's' they are EA-18g's and possibly have enough differences to require maintaining a separate NATOPs check from the other variants. (never flown one so I don't actually know though :). Either way, other than the blue angles who can't be everywhere and don't represent the diversity of platforms out in the fleet, there really aren't dedicated airshow aircraft out there.
These were locally stationed, just over the border in Washington. The Blue Angels are in Florida today.
Yah.. but between the Iran war and this, we've taken some EW losses. And it's not like this is one of the capabilities that we have massively overprovisioned.
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.
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.
You know what's cooler? A functional social safety net. Public services that work are lit. High quality education is absolutely dope. Universal healthcare is smoking hot.
Displays of flying death machines to glorify the state are BORING.
bla bla bla you don't have to choose between doing interesting stuff and fixing all problems.
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?
There are a LOT of air shows where military airplanes are a small or zero component.
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" :-)
Yah.. the roaring sound and precision of military aerial display teams can't be denied, and are an awesome experience. But it's something you see someone doing in a Pitts or Extra or maybe even a Citabria or 150 that makes you question your understanding of the laws of physics :D
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.
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.
Why do small regional non military equivalents exist then?
People fly air shows with crop dusters.
I mean, also statistically, it is bound to inspire young people who potentially might be interested in picking an aviation related future. Maybe they will invent something they otherwise wouldn't have.
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.
Don't make things up or project based on your perception of tone.
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.
People demand airshows because they're cool.
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 :)
Again, they're not even right if we're going maximum correctness here...
Maximally correct answer is "there are many reasons with complex interplay", and those reasons do include the fact it's cool! Being cool has interplay with morale, recruitment, and even their ham-fisted attempt at referencing geopolitics.
They'd be "more right" if they said in addition, but they just straight up said "No."
(Also where did you read a too many comments shtick?)
Sure that's why the bean counters wrote the checks for them, but that's not the reason people attend. People attend because they are a spectacle.
It's worth questioning what the costs are, though. I love military aviation more than the average Joe, and seeing these jets pushed to their limits is pretty gratifying. But this isn't a football/soccer pasttime, the E/A-18 is an expensive F/A-18 block and the aviators are an asset of national security that take decades of experience and millions of taxpayer dollars to train. The losses sustained by the Blue Angels alone is stomach-churning, and they're widely known as one of the most professional groups around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels#Team_accidents_and...
The net benefit is marketing, and little else. As much as I enjoy watching airshow jet maneuvers, I have to acknowledge that the USSR only sent their Sukhoi pilots on-tour as a publicity stunt to increase their exports. Same goes for the US, France and China.
I grew up in a time a whole lot more was spent on air shows.
They do it because it’s awesome and it is one of the few opportunities they get to show off their gear to the public!
Probably just because it's cool.
I'm sure there's some bean-counter calculus involving recruitment, PR, demonstration of capabilities, they were going to be doing training flights anyway so why not do a few in public, etc. but they're more rationalisations rather than reasons.
I hope it stays that way too. A world where we take everything away unless it fits into the 5 year ROI spreadsheet sounds dreadful. In any case there'll a long tail of nth-order outcomes that we can't simply reduce down to a risk-reward calculation.
There's probably some deep reason why humans just have a drive to show off their awesome stuff.
It attracts talented people.
I remember going to an air show when I was 12 with a good friend. Walking through the C-5 and then seeing a thunderbirds display just captured my friends imagination in a way that’s hard to describe. He ended up becoming a Marine Aviator and basically started planning that path that day.
For whom?
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.
For recruitment, awareness, to boost civilian confidence/engagement/support in the military as a whole. The blue angels and thunderbirds are the best of the best when it comes to air shows because the best pilots are used and they train extensively.
Presumably recruitment and PR for the air force, and morale for the aviators, as they can show off their training and skills to friends, family and the general public.
Acting as a sales platform for aircraft manufacturers is also a thing. The RAF Red Arrows are probably responsible for a load of sales of the Hawk advanced trainer they use in their displays.
If we view this through the lens of the “American civil religion“, these spectacles aren’t too unlike crowds of folks gathering to witness miracles.
It kind of is a miracle when you think about what goes in to creating those machines, maintaining them, and learning to fly them so well, of course crashes notwithstanding.
Agreed, it's amazing they don't crash more often, given the complexity of it all.
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
Sir, this is a Wendy's! You have been reported for defeatism, cynicism and realism! Ramstein was actually a good thing!
Your penalty is to read escapist literature like P.G. Wodehouse for 2 weeks.
You can do advanced maneuvers without getting so close to another plane in some weird attempt at simulating a scenario that will never happen.
Did some cursory searches/math and it looks like about 1-2% of aerial shows in the US have a fatality (1-2 deaths annually with about 2000 shows on average over the last 20 years). If those numbers are correct (and they may very well not be as it’s a mix of LLM and Google quick searches) 1-2% doesn’t seem worth it.
Edit: I’m an idiot. .05-.1%. Seems a bit silly still but not as bad as I thought.
> You can do advanced maneuvers without getting so close to another plane in some weird attempt at simulating a scenario that will never happen.
That is likely true. However, it is a heck of a demonstration of pilot skill. The Blue Angels somewhat regularly post in-cockpit views of their airshow practice and it is wild how tight a formation they fly; I really recommend seeking out some of those videos, it is totally worth it. Well, for me at least :). It is not unheard of (but not common) for them to inadvertently make contact, since they fly like 18 inches apart, but given they have nearly identical vectors it does not often result in a crash.
Also I think most of the fatalities in aerial shows are civilian pilots. Control out every nonmilitary flight when considering the risk.
You might want to double check that LLM... If theres 2000 shows and 1-2 deaths, that's 0.05%-0.1%. still too high, but given the simple math error I think the other numbers are probably suspect too
Don't trust LLMs. They are bullshit machines.
That was my mistake with quick mental math tbh
It's a planned event at a specific time that requires training, planning, and coordination between multiple organizations.
Recruiting for those considering careers, and marketing more broadly for those who pay taxes.
This is a question that comes up internally as well. It gets into questions like "Why do we fund the Thunderbirds etc". I will hold off on my 2c because the arguments are already covered!
Immediately after a show like this, yes, it looks foolish to lose 2 combat planes and almost 4 aircrew for a performative event. Looking at it more generally, it's a tradeoff.
Public relations for mil spending
Also, air shows and flybys are awesome.
Flybys are awesome depending where you are. F-18s in Idaho? Pretty cool. F-18s in Pakistan? Probably stressful.
All I know is I’m glad I don’t live in the world where this kind of reasoning dominates. All the greatest things I’ve seen in my life have been arguably pointless in this way.
Entertainment, education about avionic/technology/engineering, military PR and recruiting, boost local economy, etc.
What's the purpose of motor sports? What's the purpose of a firework? What's the purpose of extreme sports exhibitions? mountain climbing expeditions?
Posturing, showing of your military capabilities towards the enemy. Raising morale (aka war propaganda) towards your own population.
Contrary to popular belief, war is mostly about public opinion, not raw strength. Even since (before) roman times, you almost never fight to the last man, you fight until you route the enemy.
I think the word you're looking for is "rout."
Thanks for your valuable contribution.
military capabilities towards the enemy
...and unfortunately sometimes also military mistakes, but fortunately this doesn't happen often.
The first rule of Flight Club is: you do not talk about Flight Club.
"Because it's there"
You need to remind the plebs why they're citizens of the wealthiest country the world has ever known but still struggle to afford healthcare.
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?
I'm reminded of a short video clip I saw a while back with a dollar-counter on-screen. Different kinds of weapons were fired, each one bigger and more expensive than the last, the counter spinning upwards all-the-while. And here's me thinking: man, just don't shoot two or three of those anti-aircraft missiles, give the cash to me, and I could buy a house and live comfortably with my family.
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.
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.
Perhaps the internet price excludes the EW payload? Seems like a plane with a load of electronics gear and transmitters/antennas would cost more than the same plane sans that stuff?
I'm not sure on the history of why there's a Growler display team, but they regularly perform at air shows, even air shows where the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds are also performing. Their display isn't formation aerobatics, more a sort of fancy fly-by.
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.
My god that tv website is chockful of javascript from all over.
If you wish to avoid it: https://nitter.net/search?f=tweets&q=mountain+home+air
That's good that all pilots ejected safely. But what if it fails? Still, losing two specialized aircraft during an airshow feels like very expensive, I doubt if it's really worth it to risks these pilots life on it
The US has over 10,000 military aircraft in service and thousands of spares sitting in storage. The US is quite arguably the only military that can casually absorb losses like these.
This specific aircraft is being phased out over the next several years. Assuming these still had some miles left on the airframe, they likely would have been put in cold storage a few years from now.
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.
The video, apart from the apparent loss of situation awareness by the following pilot, seems to show the leader making an aggressive left turn basically into the path of the other aircraft. I'm four hundred miles or so from the location but we've had some weird weather here today, and I've heard it was even more weird in Idaho. Reports of high wind speeds and gusts. I wondered if the lead aircraft had been hit by some sort of atmospheric event that pushed it into the path of the other when it happened to be too close to correct.
I don't think anything after the second jet's merge was deliberate. NASA's HARV is the only F/A-18 with a thrust vectoring exhaust designed for it, and it's doubtful that similar kit would go on an EW jet.
What's shown in the video appears to be some form of slipstreaming by the chase craft that causes them both to lose pitch authority, pulling up into a stall state and then a yaw tailslide.
Cue the development of a limpet drone that would be enough to take down one of these birds in a non-destructive way… although perhaps these ones in particular would be uniquely positioned to deal with such adversaries.
Since the negative PR effects of exploding planes undermine the intended positive promotional aspects of conducting air shows, we should probably just halt and save money, right?
Is there much of a way to recover from that kind of glomping? Kinda seems like the aerodynamics might hold them together (as the noses are somewhat pointed together), or with enough speed rip them apart chaotically since they're a bit skewed (which could be worse than ejecting early).
It seems pretty obvious that ejecting is the right choice either way, but it makes me wonder if there's any alternative in this kind of scenario.
Basically all modern fighters since the 1980s are aerodynamically unstable and require a computer to fly. A collision like this is almost certainly going to do major damage to the airframe (screwing up its aerodynamics) and maybe flight controls as well. I suspect the plane will be well outside the parameters that the flight controls software can deal with, making stable flight impossible.
Depending on how much damage was incurred during contact, since they were already flying predominantly the same direction & speed, at a higher altitude they might have uncoupled and regained controlled flight. Examples of more grievously damaged airplanes have landed in the past. I don't think they had any real hope if they stayed joined, tho.
I wonder how you can make the decision to eject in such a short timespan.
They train for it. When people who have ejected talk about it they basically say it's automatic. Things go south they pull the handle on instinct.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
At this point you barely "make the decision". They train and train and train to the point where it's automatic as soon as they know there's no way to avoid the crash.
What an odd collision. The way they remain in tandem after contact is uncanny, almost as though they were not under direct control.
They probably went into a stall (loss of lift) after collision. So they would have lost all control.
Their controls would probably feel all mushy and unresponsive at that point.
Once again, thanks Martin-Baker, 4 lives saved.
And 4 new members of the Tie Club: https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/
I cant wait to pay for that with my tax dollars.
Tax dollars really don't pay for things in the US Federal Government.
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
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
You're not wrong, but exorbitant deficit spending has its own dire consequences. (eventually) Not that I am telling you anything you don't already know.