It's Official, Blue Angels are grounded....

I see no reason why we can't form the Blue Drones for about 10% of the money and fly air shows with them just about anywhere, controlled from Nevada or Kansas.
 
The drones dont come with the swaggering blue uniforms and ray-bans that boys and girls oggle over (for different reasons(most of the time)).
 
jnmeade said:
I see no reason why we can't form the Blue Drones for about 10% of the money and fly air shows with them just about anywhere, controlled from Nevada or Kansas.
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Yeah I know right. The Thunderbirds where cancelled to.
 
Does this mean no current military aircraft at Sun n Fun or Airventure???


How boring!
 
It's the Obama grand plan....... Cut the high visible items in government and drive a wedge in party relationships.... Unfortunately the vast majority of voters are stupid enough to buy into the BS.....:mad2::mad2::mad2:
 
40 million a year ain't chump change. I say make it permanent.
 
timwinters said:
40 million a year ain't chump change. I say make it permanent.
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It is chump change, less than the pentagons budget for toilet paper. The federal goverment spends $411 million per hour, cutting off the blue angels pays for 6 minutes of the goverments operation. Eliminating fax cover sheets within the federal goverment is going to save more than what is spent on the display teams.
 
If Red Baron Pizza cancels their team, why not the Blue Angels?

Anytime someone suggests money savings ($80,000 for portraits of agency officials, which can be done for about $100 at Keikos), "We've got bigger things to worry about than such a minor amount."

How many people have to pay Federal Income Tax to support $40 million for the air shows in one year?
 
us AAirways said:
Does this mean no current military aircraft at Sun n Fun or Airventure???
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Pretty much, other than from the Wisconsin ANG on a local training sortie. BTW, the Blues aren't grounded -- just not going to fly at air shows. They'll still be doing their normal operational training for the minimal combat readiness status they are required to maintain.
 
N801BH said:
It's the Obama grand plan....... Cut the high visible items in government and drive a wedge in party relationships.... Unfortunately the vast majority of voters are stupid enough to buy into the BS.....:mad2::mad2::mad2:
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Right, the President himself, having nothing else to do, is personally making all of the detailed budget decisions of every single governmental department and bureau. Unless you agree with the cuts in which case he had nothing to do with it. :rofl:
 
weilke said:
It is chump change, less than the pentagons budget for toilet paper. The federal goverment spends $411 million per hour, cutting off the blue angels pays for 6 minutes of the goverments operation. Eliminating fax cover sheets within the federal goverment is going to save more than what is spent on the display teams.
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This is the problem. No one thinks $60 mil is a lot of money anymore, unless of course it is their money, which tax money is. If I don't see the Blue Angles again so be it. It is too expensive and we cannot afford it.
 
Seanaldinho said:
The drones dont come with the swaggering blue uniforms and ray-bans that boys and girls oggle over (for different reasons(most of the time)).
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And the ascots, don't forget the ascots...:)
 
Geico266 said:
This is the problem. No one thinks $60 mil is a lot of money anymore, unless of course it is their money, which tax money is. If I don't see the Blue Angles again so be it. It is too expensive and we cannot afford it.
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We still need people to go into the armed forces. The Blues and Birds are great recruiting tools. That need will still need to be met. Will the replacement be as cost effective (or enjoyable)?
 
N801BH said:
It's the Obama grand plan....... Cut the high visible items in government and drive a wedge in party relationships.... Unfortunately the vast majority of voters are stupid enough to buy into the BS.....:mad2::mad2::mad2:
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SZ, please.
 
gprellwitz said:
We still need people to go into the armed forces. The Blues and Birds are great recruiting tools. That need will still need to be met. Will the replacement be as cost effective (or enjoyable)?
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While the Blues and T-birds are certainly good recruiting tools, in the DoD fiscal sense, recruiting is NOT a priority right now compared to some other more pressing items (like paying for food, fuel and repair parts for ships and aircraft currently deployed).

Our 'Force-Shaping' tools are in full swing - we are looking to boot more people than take them in right now. At some point the pendulum will shift again, but for now, recruiting is not a problem that needs money thrown at it.
 
weilke said:
It is chump change, less than the pentagons budget for toilet paper. The federal goverment spends $411 million per hour, cutting off the blue angels pays for 6 minutes of the goverments operation. Eliminating fax cover sheets within the federal goverment is going to save more than what is spent on the display teams.
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That's how you improve a budget - one small step at a time.
 
tinerj said:
How many people have to pay Federal Income Tax to support $40 million for the air shows in one year?
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I'd have to pay taxes for 8,000 YEARS to pay the $40 million. My entire tax-paying lifetime is for naught, as is that of my son, grandson, and so on for 200 GENERATIONS.

That un-recruits me from looking favorable on the Blue Angels.
 
gprellwitz said:
We still need people to go into the armed forces. The Blues and Birds are great recruiting tools. That need will still need to be met. Will the replacement be as cost effective (or enjoyable)?
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+1

It is useful as a marketing and recruiting tool. It never hurts to show the world our strength once in a while.

We used to lead from the front.
 
We were spending 20 billion a year for air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's fraud, waste and abuse at its finest in the military. 40 million a year to inspire and recruit is a good investment. Far more areas to cut in the budget than the Blues. Instead of arbitrary cuts we need to seriously sit down and find ways to circumvent some of these contractors who are ripping off the U.S. taxpayer.
 
The Blue Angles are worth every penny.

A government budget isn't a house budget. Becauce the guy they don't like is in the white house Fox will tell you it is. Rush will scream how it is...but its not.

They'll tell you the same thing, but just not until their guy is in office. Stop watching fox.
 
gprellwitz said:
We still need people to go into the armed forces. The Blues and Birds are great recruiting tools. That need will still need to be met. Will the replacement be as cost effective (or enjoyable)?
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This is the point. The Navy and AF get something for the $$ they spend on Demo teams. It isn't just a throwaway PR expense.

If they are getting good value for the money, doing away with the program (even temporarily) is one in a long list of poor choices.
 
kyleb said:
This is the point. The Navy and AF get something for the $$ they spend on Demo teams. It isn't just a throwaway PR expense.

If they are getting good value for the money, doing away with the program (even temporarily) is one in a long list of poor choices.
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No one (in the Navy at least) is proposing to eliminate the Blues. The issue is cancellation of any performances for the rest of the year. For a guy on active duty in the Navy right now, that decision makes 100% sense to me.

Because of the sequestration, money is tight across the board. There are alot of operational units that could most definitely use the fuel that the Blues would burn for the rest of the year. And while the Blues have recruiting value, we do not lack for people right now (particularly aviators). The brown shoes are generally more overmanned and right now than other communities.

When you have to make a decision between spending money to meet operational committments and spending for advertising/recuriting during a time when you have a greatly reduced need for recruiting.....you are going to go with the operational committments.

By cancelling shows and keeping the Blues home doing basic proficiency stuff, you can always bring them back when the conditions change.
 
Fearless Tower said:
No one (in the Navy at least) is proposing to eliminate the Blues. The issue is cancellation of any performances for the rest of the year. For a guy on active duty in the Navy right now, that decision makes 100% sense to me.
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I agree. But the point about value remains. Either the Blues are a good value or they are not, and (sequestration aside) this should be treated as a business decision.
 
I propose they ground AF1 instead. Probably save more money.
 
kyleb said:
I agree. But the point about value remains. Either the Blues are a good value or they are not, and (sequestration aside) this should be treated as a business decision.
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If you're a business, and you have a tight cash-flow and a backlog of orders for quite a while into the future, the advertising budget is reasonable to constrict at that point.

Spending scarce money on recruiting when you have a surplus of applicants doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
I was recently at an ANA meeting. The past leader of the A4 team gave a presentation.

He said the Blue Angels would still be practicing every day.
 
How can we say we are making legitimate cuts while giving $1.5 Billion to the muslim brotherhood in egypt? These are people that hate us and we throw money at them. And cutting the Blue Angels is a litigate cut? Come on now.... Make serious cuts in the right places first....
 
I'd like to see us let this full sequester go through and then have another 15-20% reduction sequester again on top of it in 6 months. Only then might we start to cut into meat but we are still at the cutting fluff stage IMO. Cut FBI, DEA, Defense-especially contractors, cut aid to corporate farms, cut aid to all corporations.

Until we cut foreign bases in Germany, Okinawa and close more US side bases we are still doing things business as usual.

We need to cut or put on hold most Pentagon projects. And we need to root out Homeland Security which is 90% BS like TSA and Fusion centers. With the lose of USSR and China as boogymen now we have A Muslim boogyman. So lets take the huge part of our money that shoudl go to fix bridges, roads, other infrastructure and lets spend it on fusion centers we can better watch US citizens.

Once we get near full employment the new tax revenues from full employment then we can rewind up the Industrial war machine again, Industrial law enforcement complex and Fusion information services to keep us all safe.

US strength comes from financial strength and technological strength...not by how many tanks we have.
 
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landairsea said:
How can we say we are making legitimate cuts while giving $1.5 Billion to the muslim brotherhood in egypt? These are people that hate us and we throw money at them. And cutting the Blue Angels is a litigate cut? Come on now.... Make serious cuts in the right places first....
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This is too complicated of subject to have with people who rely mostly on fox for information. However the total foreign aid of the US is something less than 1.6% of the budget and you basically need to put a water hose on your neighbors burning house to prevent it moving to yours. Whether the aid is manipulation or what I do not know. If we had sprayed the water hose on Afghanistan 15 years ago maybe 10 years ago they might not have started a war here. I think we are now projected to have spent $2 trillion on these little wars.
 
The irony is we don't have money to give ... we're borrowing money to give away. Very philanthropic, but fiscally stupid.
 
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