Warbird Information Exchange

Any chance a Permanent USAF heritage flight with F86, F4 and F15 and F16 will ever be done?

In australia here it doesnt happen much which is a shame..

recently we had a beauitful setup-

Boomerang, P-40 , Spitfire, Mustang , Meteor , F18 Hornet nearly 60yrs of RAAF fighters in formatiion.

Alas was missing a CAC Sabre - 2 under restoring to fly soon and a Mirage which is unlikely to ever been seen reflying in oz....



We do sometimes have bomber formations of - a Hundson, Canberra, and F-111.
Alas no F-4E Phantom or Lincolin or Lancaster or Beaufort or Beaufighter still...

What do you mean by "Permanent" USAF Heritage Flight?

I have seen an F-4, F-16 and TWO (2) F-86 Sabre Heritage Flight at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia and an F-15, F-4, A-10 and F-86 Heritage Flight at Andrews AFB, Maryland.

There very possibly has been an F-16, F-15, F-4, F-86 Heritage Flight sometime in the past couple of years.

Not sure about the likelhood of one of these type Heritage flights showing up in Australia, though.

2007 is the 60th Anniversary of the USAF (and 10th anniversary of the Heritage Flight concept, I think?), so hopfully it will be a good year for Heritage Flights.

Frankly, I'm surprised that the USAF maintained the Heritage Flight program after the 50th anniversary in 1997. The USAF overtly cared very little about its heritage until that point...but somehow the AF has held on to this whole heritage idea and has kept Heritage Flight alive.

The USAF doesn't go to the same extent as the RAF, though, with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

I don't personally ever see the USAF maintaining flyable examples of obsolete aircraft types in the fleet. Given the current financial situation, and the overall downsizing of the USAF fleet, I just don't see it happening.

As much as I'd like to see it happen...

One of the problems with that idea is no aspiring officer in his right mind would want to touch that billet and damage his career. It would be considered a career ender with very little translation in the military -industrial complex once they shopped their resume's around. The airlines and General Dynamics aren't exactly hiring VFR airshow pilots! They also have "efficiency reports" where the OIC is held accountable to the combat readiness, and percent of mission capable aircraft in his squadron.
Imagine where you would be on the Pentagon's priority list for spare parts , while we are currently fighting two wars!
The Blue Angels used to have to do carrier ops and gunnery training to maintain profiency during the airshow season. (IN F-4's) Imagine the inspection and parts replacement nightmare of a composite squadron of say F-102's, F-4's , A-7's a couple of F-8's and a couple of F-9G Cougars!
Also the Heritage Flights sre A) a recruiting tool B) relieves pressure of having a lot of static display aircraft requested. Transports are particularly in demand right now.

I'm here to tell you, I would gladly take on that project without hesitation.

Unfortunately, I'm a lowly Major.

As far as I know, nearly all of the officers and men in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight have other duties in the mainstream squadrons also stationed at RAF Coningsby. It is seen as a great honor to be a part of the flight. From everything I have seen and read, those who take part in the flight do so with great enthusiasm. I don't believe it is considered to be a step in the wrong direction, career-wise, by those who are involved.

Cheers,
Richard

All the BBMF pilots, with the exception of the OC, are part time 'volunteers'. However the engineering staff are actually full time on the Flight.

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Randy, you know there is supposed to be a Colonel's billet at the Air Force Museum. You would have the keys to all the treasures.
I have been thinking a lot the last couple of months about how a "Heritage Squadron" would look like if ever funded by the U.S. govt.
My guess is that it would have some similarity to either the Tracor/ FLight systems operations currently using the QF-4's and QF-106's, or maybe like an Air Force Reserve Squadron. YOu have full time maintainers and a pilot or two and weekend professionals coming in to take the aircraft on cross country flights. My guess the govt. would want to fund X dollars for X guaranteed appearances or flight hours. It would be up to the contractors to make it happen.
The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds are maxed out on appearances so it would relieve pressure on them, be immensely popular with the politicians and the airplanes could also be used as recruiting tools.
There would need to be a base of operations, preferably in the central U. S. and with plenty of spare airplanes as backups so they can keep schedules. For example, I spent some time in VMA-124 in Memphis, and we had 16 A-4 Skyhawks, one of which was a two seater. We never deployed more than 9 aircraft TDY, and don't remember more than 11 "up" or flight mission capable at any given time. There was an endless supply of spare parts coming out of Davis-Monthan. THey could always schedule 3 or 4 for whatever purpose.
Does anyone have any ideas?

I have been trying to get involved with Heritage Flight from the USAF side ever since I got into the fighter business. The only problem is that you have to fly for one of the ACC Demo Teams to be qualified to fly for Heritage Flight.

Initially, the problem was that there was no such thing as an F-15E Demo Team, and even in there was, I was not senior enough nor experienced enough to participate.

By the time there was an F-15E Demo Team estabished, I was doing my pennance as an instructor.

Now that I'm going back to the F-15E, with enough rank and experience to play on the Demo Team, I'm going to be assigned in Europe where there isn't an ACC Demo Team. Harumph.

Recently I also looked into what it would take to get a Staff job at ACC Headquarters working on Heritage Flight. I actually know someone there who used to be my Commander, and he was very interested in the fact that I am very interested in warbirds and such...

After he looked into it some more....BZZZZT! Sorry, you've got to have been on a Demo Team in order to work on Staff for Heritage Flight.

Frustrating to say the least.

Recently I also looked into what it would take to get a Staff job at ACC Headquarters working on Heritage Flight. I actually know someone there who used to be my Commander, and he was very interested in the fact that I am very interested in warbirds and such...

After he looked into it some more....BZZZZT! Sorry, you've got to have been on a Demo Team in order to work on Staff for Heritage Flight.

Randy,

Any chance you could call MPC, talk to the dude that handles Strike Eagle assinments and try to sweet talk 'em into a CONUS F-15E assignment (if one's available) where they have the demo team? A C-130 buddy of mine pulled that off with an MPC assignments guy years ago. Then again, maybe doing this would ruffle some feathers at MPC or in your chain of command?? The needs of the Air Force...d*mn!!