Reply to What is that crazy jet sound right now??

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes it was the Blue Angels but the purpose was a photo shoot. That's why there were 6 jets flying in formation and then a 7th over to the side -- the 7th jet was a photography unit. They did flyovers of the Washington Monument and the White House for sure, likely to get photos of the gets aligned with those landmarks. I would bet they also did photos with the Capitol and other parts of the National Mall as well, given the number of flyovers.

It cannot be stated enough how expensive that was.

I would also assume some of the motivation has to do with the current rebrand of the DoD as "Department of War" and a desire to show off some of our most expensive weapons of war in a way they can associate with this administration. The photography plane also indicates they were taking relative close ups of the planes, potentially with pilots visible in the photos. I am wondering if Hegseth or other VIPs were in the planes.

The entire thing was a very, very expensive branding exercise. Paid for with tax payer dollars while vital federal services are either paused or being performed by unpaid workers at the moment.[/quote]

Cost concern troll is very concerned about the cost  :roll:

Uh, those are demonstration pilots and they HAVE to fly (more often than most other pilots) in order to maintain skill proficiency. Blue Angels or Thunderbird pilots can’t sit at a desk 20 days a month and go fly every week or two for a few hours like other military pilots often do - they have to fly much more frequently to practice their routines.

So whether they’re flying to do photos over DC, or flying to an air show appearance somewhere, or flying in practice, they’re still going to be flying somewhere. So that money was already being spent, whether they’re flying flew over DC, or over Pensacola Florida.

Did you have the same fiscal concerns and make a fuss about USAID spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on drag shows in Ecuador and Peru?…. Or was that different? [/quote]

PP here and I have concerns about any federal waste, including any in the USAID program. However it should be noted that if USAID funded drag shows in South America, the cost/waste compared to today's flyovers is infinitesimal. As a tax payer, I am more bothered by huge cost overruns on unnecessary activity than minor line items that may be dumb but ultimately don't cost me much.

This wasn't a routine, because they were taking photo. I'm sure the Blue Angels practice for their routines, but that's a built in cost of the program. This was a special flyover to take marketing photos for the DoD, not part of the Blue Angels line item. It cost money not only in terms of the jet fuel and wear and tear on the airplanes, but it also grounded flights at National for close to an hour causing ripple effects throughout the country. Flyovers in DC are a significant expense, they are not free.

They are also done periodically for other reasons, including holidays and other celebrations, when they are done for the enjoyment of tourists and other onlookers. There was absolutely no reason that they could not have seized one of those opportunities to send out a photography unit and taken photos for marketing purposes. That's what I would expect of a cost-conscious administration and DoD who actually gives a damn about how taxpayer dollars are spent. If you want to throw a fit about a few thousand dollars in a USAID budget that got misused (which I am fine with) then you should also care about this level of waste.

The fact that they did this during a government shutdown is also significant, you have Head Start programs in this country shutting down because their funding has been turned off, people can't get through to Social Security to ask questions about their only source of retirement income (money that is owed to them by a program they paid into), and kids who may go hungry tonight because their parents lost their SNAP benefits. But what is the priority of this government? Well, you see, Pete Hegseth is a tiny, insecure drunkard who needs to assuage his own ego and appease his toddler-boss with pretty photos of the Blue Angels flying over the White House in formation. So screw every day Americans. Screw kids. Look at the pretty airplanes.[/quote]

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