Warbird Information Exchange

The USAF has axed the A-10 East & West, F-16 East & West and F-15E demonstration teams for 2012. The F-22 will perform at a few shows still, and the Thunderbirds are unaffected at this time. I wonder how this will affect the heritage flight program?

When recruitment rates go down, they will re-institute those demos.

Tulio

If what I hear about other cuts is accurate, they won't need to recruit for a while. They will be kicking people out at an alarming rate.

The short answer is that they do not even know.

It "should" continue using the "ex" demo pilots staging and flying with the heritage planes at about 40-50 shows each year. But as of yesterday the Lt. Colonel in charge of the program was still waiting for more light on the topic from above.

Tom P.

MX304 wrote:The USAF has axed the A-10 East & West, F-16 East & West and F-15E demonstration teams for 2012. The F-22 will perform at a few shows still, and the Thunderbirds are unaffected at this time. I wonder how this will affect the heritage flight program?

Regarding the Heritage Flights - at ICAS it was mentioned that former demonstration pilots may be used to participate in Heritage Flights moving forward.

wendovertom wrote:The short answer is that they do not even know.

It "should" continue using the "ex" demo pilots staging and flying with the heritage planes at about 40-50 shows each year. But as of yesterday the Lt. Colonel in charge of the program was still waiting for more light on the topic from above.

Tom P.

This was posted on the A-10 East Demo Team Facebook page here earlier today:

Well, after a long couple months of wondering what the future holds, we learned recently that although there will be no "demo team" for A-10 East this year, we will still support the Air Force Heritage Flight Program at air shows around the country this season, so I hope to see you HAWG fans representing at air shows this spring! ATTACK! -HABU

Anthony

Another update from the A-10 East Demo Team Facebook page here:

Right now each of the demo teams that were "cut" will fly in up to 10 Heritage Flights for 2012.

Anthony

Air Combat Command has issued a press release announcing that the annual Air Combat Command Heritage Flight Training and Certification Course will take place at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base from March 2-4:

D-M hosts Heritage Flight Training and Certification Course:

The F-15E Strike Eagle is absent from the list of aircraft participating in the Heritage Flight training:

This year's historic aircraft flying in the Heritage Flight training include the P-51 Mustang, the P-40 Warhawk, the A-36 Apache, P-47 Thunderbolt and the F-86 Sabre. ACC aircraft include the F-4 Phantom II, A-10 Thunderbolt II, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-22 Raptor.

Anthony

I bet the Stike Eagle is a "HDLD" asset - High Demand, Low Density - in otherwords, they are busy elesewhere. The whole ACC deal is understandable but harsh on the air show world.

Tom P.

Just means more shows for the Red Jet Steel team/Cold War Air Museum with their MiG-23, the WHF with their T-2 and A-4, and the Collings Foundation with their F-4D and TA-4J.

wendovertom wrote:I bet the Stike Eagle is a "HDLD" asset - High Demand, Low Density - in otherwords, they are busy elesewhere. The whole ACC deal is understandable but harsh on the air show world.

Tom P.

Not technically. With 200+ in the fleet, that's not considered "low density".

True HD/LD assets are things like the U-2, RC-135, AWACS, etc.

I was going to say, the last time the Mud Hen was "HDLD" was during Desert Storm when there were only 48 of them.

Didn't realize we had 200+ of them though. Thought it was still sub-100.

i smell the crap of a poor economy, to bad.

Poor economy has nothing to do with it. Political budget processes have everything to do with it.