Disclaimer: if you only want to see some great retro Blue Angels footage without a little political commentary, please just click play above and enjoy. More robust individuals can continue to the words that follow : )
The video above does a great job of showcasing the Blue Angels from back in the mid 80's when they were not far from the end of the A-4 Skyhawk era. Seeing the A-4 again reminds me of how much I liked that airplane as an airshow performer. Looking past the Skyhawk, it's hard to believe that they've been flying the F/A-18 since 1986! That's 27 years with the Hornet, and it still looks like a perfect aircraft after all these years... well, it would if you'd have had the chance to see it this year. Only the first two shows of the 2013 season were performed, the remaining 33 shows were cancelled as part of the sequestration.
Video screenshot of a tight 19080's Blue Angels formation in the A-4 Skyhawk
Don't get me wrong here, I'm all for the idea of reducing government spending, in fact I feel that the sequestration cuts didn't even begin to go far enough (see the U.S. debt clock), but the way the government chose to deal with the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds seems like a spiteful act against the heart of America rather than a smart spending cut. According to the wiki entry, the budget for the Blues is about $37 million. However, there's no way we saved $37 million by cancelling essentially the entire season... the entire Blues infrastructure is still in place and being maintained, so the actual savings was much smaller. But the real issues here is about how much it cost in terms of lost revenue by metropolitan areas all around the country. The cancelled performances led to most of the events they were to headline being cancelled as well. The financial impact to Americans (which IS America) certainly had to exceed the amount 'saved'. This leads me to the question of what the motivation really was from those supposedly leading the country.
It's here that I've come to the complete conclusion that the U.S. government is not interested in what's good for the people of the United States, but rather what's good for the people running the government. To some of you that's crazy talk. To me it's plain and simple fact. The events of the last several weeks only prove it more.
The mission of the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds isn't to give Americans something fun to do on a weekend, it's to promote the U.S. armed forces for the purpose of bolstering American pride and encouraging young people to consider a career in service to their country. The value to the nation right there vastly exceeds the Blues $37 million budget.
Given the views of the man who sits in the Oval Office, I guess there's no surprise that he would consider it a success to keep the Blues from being able to do their job.
Lastly, LCDR Mike Gershon, who was was featured in the video above as solo pilot in the #6 aircraft, was killed in a Blue Angels airshow accident not long after the video was made. A follow up video about Mike and the accident can be seen here. It does a great job of showing Mike's history and his strong wife, who lost her husband when their son was just over a month old. Both videos were produced for Evening Magazine broadcast on KPIX in San Francisco. The video about the accident, and the way it portrays Mike's family is extremely well done, especially when compared to today's style of sensational 'victim' exploitation.
The slippery slope gets ever steeper.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at 05:31AM 
Video screenshot of the Dream Chaser about to land without left main gear extended
