A few questions

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Maverick_Kenwei
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Post by Maverick_Kenwei » Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:18 am

I always wonder why doesn't the currently F-35B demo from VMFAT-501 performs airshow over at the west coast as well and that the F-35B demo from VMFAT-501 remain in the East Coast. I also want to know why there isn't a permanent F-35B demo on the west coast as well? Same with the AV-8 harrier jet like there can be a permanent AV-8 demo on the East and West coast. Is it because of funding?
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Ken Wei

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Post by Maverick_Kenwei » Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:53 am

I’m just wondering why doesn't the currently F-35B demo from VMFAT-501 performs airshow over at the west coast as well and that the F-35B demo from VMFAT-501 remain performing in the East Coast. I also want to know why there isn't a permanent F-35B demo on the west coast as well? I know the F-35B demo from Miramar airshow this year belongs to VMFAT-502 so I wanted to know how come VMFAT-502 doesn’t become a permanent demo as well just like the VMFAT-501?
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Ken Wei

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Post by Maverick_Kenwei » Sun Dec 31, 2023 7:13 pm

Adam wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:04 am
Maverick_Kenwei wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 7:02 pm
Adam wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 9:40 am In any case, it's worth seperating what happens in the Pacific to what happens on the continental US. The purpose of airshow participation in the USA is to recruit and to entertain. The purpose of airshow participation in the Pacific is big picture stuff - re-enforcing diplomatic ties and selling aircraft. Singapore is trialling the F-35B for its air force, so make no mistake, the US DOD was going to get an F-35B to that show, regardless of what conventions needed to be broken. Iwakuni's airshow participation reflects nothing more than the US DOD's foreign policy objectives at that particular point in time.
I know there’s actually a PACAF viper demo team who’s also base in the pacific, yet, it travels to different show sites to perform Airshows…
Yes, I've seen it many times while attending shows out there. But like Iwakuni's F-35 deployment to Singapore, it is only used as a foreign policy tool and I imagine almost all its appearances are ordered by the DOD at a very high level.

When I lived in southeast Asia, the US military did demos at most of the big airshows in the region, including USMC MV-22Bs and F-35Bs, PACAF F-16s and C-17s, USAF B-1s and more. The US DOD would decide, for whatever reason, that there should be an American presence at a specific event, but sending an official demo team usually wasn't a practical option. So instead, they would find a normal aircraft from a normal Pacific-based squadron, or one from an aircraft carrier that happened to be passing, or one from a US mainland squadron that was on temporary deployment to the area, and get them to do a simple demo instead. But - and this is the important point - even though they did a demo, that doesn't make the squadron a "demo team". It was just a normal pilot from a normal squadron, doing a short, simple demo as a one-off, because someone at the Pentagon told them they had to. I'm pretty sure that's what happened with Iwakuni's F-35Bs in Singapore.

This is why I said earlier that if you're trying to understand the structure of US demo teams, forget about the Pacific. What happens out there doesn't follow the normal rules.
I have also notice there're 3 different C-17 demo teams so that got me thinking why would there be 3 different c17 demo teams (east coast, west coast and PACAF) when there could just be an east coast and PACAF C17 demo team similar to the Viper demo team. Also, why can't there be like an actual f22 demo team from PACAF baed at Hickam or like a super hornet demo team based at Iwakuni, I guess it's because there wouldn't be enough funding.
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Post by passedgas46 » Sun Feb 11, 2024 3:26 pm

I've seen you ask questions like these on here as well as in other locations and I've kept my mouth shut since you've had those with more airshow knowledge than myself chime in with what they know. I'll chime in based in my experience going back to when I was little - we're talking before the Blue Angels flew F/A-18s and before the Thunderbirds flew F-16s.

I've seen just about everything fly a demo except for the F-35B, F-35C, and EA-18G - and of course whatever profile this KC-135 team out of Fairchild and the one out of Altus flies.

With regards to the Marines, my understanding was that there was a simple profile done that nearly any Harrier, Lightning II, or Osprey pilot/crew could fly with minimal training. Simple enough - no aerobatics, just do these passes, hover, land, etc. and the crowd would love it, and if there's a squadron available to do it that weekend, great.

The bigger planes like C-130s and C-17s... well, let's just say the Rhode Island ANG used to do a mighty fine C-130J-30 demo. I recall the last time they did it, they overstressed an airplane and upon landing, that was the end of that. As for C-17s, back before the Alaska crash, I recall going to Dover AFB and McGuire AFB (back before the name change) and they had crews from those bases flying the C-17 demo profile. I remember one Oceana airshow that had a C-17 demo and it was from March ARB. Then the crash happened. A few years later the New York ANG started doing C-17 demos at their home base and I believe they took it on the road too. That stopped because of an incident. Today, I believe there's four official/unofficial C-17 demo teams out there - Charleston, McChord, Altus, and Hickam - and all of them fly the same C-17 profile. Each year it's the same crew flying the demos; they probably got that lesson when the Nimrod crashed in Toronto in the 90s. These crews also have mobility missions trumping airshows so if a C-17 demo is cancelled, that's usually why.

The USAF fighters... I remember when the F-15 and F-16 demos started coming online. A-10, too. Now it's just one A-10 demo, one F-16, and of course one F-22 and one F-35A demo. Used to be two each for the A-10, F-15, and F-16, and of course the F-15E for a few years. That PACAF F-16 demo out of Japan seems to be there to showcase the USAF in the Pacific region, fly Alaskan airshows, and probably also sell F-16s. From the video I saw from a 2021 airshow, it looked like the normal F-16 demo profile.

I completely forgot about the B-1. I recall seeing video from about 25 years ago of a Georgia ANG B-1 flying an awesome demo at a west coast airshow. Then in 2001 we had not one but two B-1s from the Kansas ANG fly an awesome profile at what's now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. I've since seen multi-pass demonstrations from Dyess AFB B-1s both in person and watching videos - including the two years Oshkosh had them, there's so many great vantage points of those videos (hope they have one there this year when I'm there!). Then I've heard of lackluster showings of B-1s at their home shows the past two years. I guess the days of seeing B-1s in flight at airshows are behind us? (What about Edwards?)

Tomcats aside... and just talking Hornets, I do recall many times having seen Hornet demos (when they didn't cancel last minute) flown in fleet squadron jets. I can't remember if these were fleet crews or IPs from the RAGs.

After all this, I think it all comes down to funding and aircraft availability. To me, the Navy and Marines do not set aside specific aircraft and aircrews just for airshows. An F-35B demo crew from the east coast probably would fly different squadrons' aircraft and airline over to pick up the planes before flying an airshow on the west coast. You have to remember that these men and women have a job to do first and foremost and you could call airshows a really cool side gig.

Edited because I forgot one big USAF jet...
Last edited by passedgas46 on Sun Feb 11, 2024 3:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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