Warbird Information Exchange

Everyone,

The Wings Over Houston Airshow committee recently made the decision to eliminate the Vietnam War segment from the Air Power Historical Timeline segment of the show to make room for an un-named aerobatic team in the show lineup. I am one of many people who were not only surprised to hear this news, but also extremely upset by the move to cut the Vietnam segment from the show. All veterans should be honored for their role in history and our Vietnam Vets are no exception... in fact, this is the time when we should be honoring them most as we are beginning to see them pass from our ranks with age.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the Houston Area and Ellington Field itself is home to most of the few FLYING examples of warbirds used in the Vietnam War and others come from areas around Texas to take part... in short, the show is fortunate to have such a number of Vietnam warbirds within such easy reach.

WOH has been known for honoring veterans and being one of the larger warbird-focused shows in the U.S. -- this decision is a real 180 degree spin on what they have been known for... and the omission of the Vietnam segment is more of a disrespect to the veterans than anything.

An online petition has been started to protest this decision by the airshow committee and I would like to ask any of you, whether you were planning to attend WOH or not, to please sign the petition and post your disagreement with the decision...

The petition and a full description may be found at:
http://www.change.org/petitions/commemorative-air-force-wings-over-houston-airshow-city-of-houston-honor-vietnam-war-veterans

The letter at the petition site reads (quoted directly from the page):



Please sign the petition and spread the word... I certainly did and am proud to do so. Our Vietnam Vets deserve our respect.

Thanks,
Ryan

_________________
Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

I'd heard about the possibility of cutting Vietnam out of AirSho this year (due to budget issues they cut a bunch of stuff apparently), but hadn't heard about WoH cutting it out. Karen said this year had been busy for her and the other Vietnam/Korea guys because their show was so popular. I hope they reconsider removing that segment, but then again, WoH for many years has been doing everything it can to become a static "airshow"...

Already done !

_________________
"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Could the mysterious team, be the Brazilian Squadron da Fumaca? [Smoke Squadron]? I seem to remember something mentioned about this, some time ago....

Nothing to do with the VN portion of the show and this thread's subject matter, but this group has an exceptional flying display.

Saludos,


Tulio

_________________
Why take the best part of life out of your life, when you can have life with the best part of your life in your life?

I am one of them 'futbol' people.

Will the previous owner has pics of this double cabin sample

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Press "1" for English.
Press "2" to disconnect until you have learned to speak English.

Sooooo, how am I going to know to press 1 or 2, if I do not speak English????

No, Tulio, the team added is the Heavy Metal Jet Team. Heavy Metal just booked an airshow. They had no part in the decision, that falls squarely on the WOH folks. They needed 20 minutes on the schedule, so they chopped the Viet Nam segment. I'm not sure they thought this through !

_________________
"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

From the WOH Facebook page:

And a reply to my comment right after the announcement:

So it sounds like they aren't permanently snubbing the Vietnam folks. Also, I think I saw that the jet team was already funded, or something like that, so it would possibly save the show some dough.
That said, I don't like the change.

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

This team/act is good and made up with several ex-military pilots. As RickH says they had no part in the decision. The Airshow Committee felt it was more important to have many aerobatic performances than to stick with the historical time line. It is unfortunate, not for those of us who were uninvited, but for the Vietnam Vets who are now the generation who support airshows. Take a look at some of their comments on the petition site.

The Vietnam Demo with Rick Sharpe's birds, RickH's birds and mine will be at Randolph AFB in November for, I guess, the last performance of the season. Who knows what will happen next year.

As clarification, AIRSHO at MAF has changed their concept for this year and really won't be doing the historical time line at all as I understand; so won't be there either.

_________________

It was sort of aggrevating to see the pop-up that followed my clicking on the link to submit my petition signature.

Change.org is a blatently left-wing organization.

Walt

_________________
If God had intended airplane engines to have horizontally-opposed cylinders, Pratt & Whitney would have built them that way.

I can live without the HMJ, since the Horsemen F-86s appear to be gone (no Hinton, so no 3 horsemen), I see no real reason to go to the show....

Watching Rick's Phantom and Skyhawk fly would be worth the trip, but cut them and I'll stay home and cut the grass.......

Mark H

_________________
Fly safe or you get to meet me .......

Bye Bye Houston and signed as well...

No offense to the Heavy Metal Jet Team, Jive and Snort - they certainly have a great show act and their charity and awareness for Make-A-Wish Foundation is great as well. The fact that they are fully funded is great as well and I don't blame them for wanting to be part of such a major show in a top 10 U.S. city -- I just think that there is more at hand here than money when it comes to the show committee.

It's that airshow committee I have a problem with... and as mentioned earlier in the thread, they have been gradually making the show static for many of the warbirds that have been part of the act in the past... especially warbird operations outside of their own ranks. It's been years of this and now its really is beginning to smell like there is an alternate agenda at hand. If it was any other show, they would have taken the opportunity to add Heavy Metal Jet Team in as an added bonus and kept the already established acts in the show as planned.

If it was about the money, I completely understand the idea of saving cash because HMJT is fully-funded in regards to appearance fees, but if I recall, most of the aircraft in the Vietnam segment came without asking for an appearance fee - so I don't see money as the issue at hand. And I am sure four L-39's and a MiG-17 aren't saving gas expense for the show either. There are other acts within the schedule that could have been adjusted... especially the standard commercial airshow acts. I mean really, do they NEED two different parachute acts? Does Red Bull really need to be represented by THREE different acts? Come on.

Just the fact that an entire part of the show that equally honored both Air Force and Army Aviation veterans as well as the Infantry troops was nixed without an attempt at a bit of creative schedule adjustment is frustrating to say the least. Our Vietnam Vets have waited so long for anyone to pay attention to their service and now, just as airshows are starting to "get it" and adding Vietnam displays to their shows, one of the top 10 shows in the U.S. drops them off the schedule when most of them are RIGHT THERE IN HOUSTON.

And when it comes to them saying that the Vietnam portion will be back next year... who is going to hold them accountable for that? What if another act comes in with a sweetheart deal late in the game again, will it be another "next year" cop out as well? I have experienced the same pattern with another show that I grew up with. They lost their focus in keeping the show unique, kept adding "sponsored" acts and the standard run-of-the-mill routines and bumped the warbird acts that the loyal fans came for... it vaporized because it became like every other show and thus doing even less service for the veterans.

My opinion...

Thanks,
Ryan

_________________
Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

I signed the petition. I was very disappointed to hear that the Vietnam/Korea segment was being cut. I don't mind the HMJT being part of the show, but I would have preferred to have a single ship aerobatic performer, skydivers or some other performer of that type cut, rather than a warbird segment.

Thanks for the sentiment, but I'm perfectly happy being part of the team that keeps the Collings Foundation Memorial Flight up and running.



To be honest the WOH folks had not booked ANY of the Collings Foundation jets for the show. We did have a meeting back in January but the folks in charge decided to go another way. I did hear yesterday that they expected the Huey to be part of Viet Nam, but that was after the announcement of the segment cancellation.

Ryan K, we have flown the airshow with the Huey for the past 3 years for next to nothing. We have also flown the TA-4 for the last two years well below its normal appearance fee just so we could support the show and get the aircraft up for our local volunteers. The aircraft not flying are set up for static display. We also participate with our tugs, towbars, nitrogen carts, compressors, and power units, just to be good neighbors. We'll be busy elsewhere this year.

_________________
"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Well, 20 minutes is certainly a HUGE amount of time. It's not like they could start the show 10 minutes early and run 10 minutes longer or anything...

Anybody point this out to the people running the show?

I will sign and notify a friend who is head of the Houston chapter of the vva

_________________
Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005