BURST
The U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels are traditionally the centrepiece of San Francisco’s annual Fleet Week — six F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jets performing aerobatic manoeuvres in tight formation, to the delight of crowds.
This year, the U.S. government shutdown has grounded those navy flyers along with a host of other military craft. The navy said in a statement to media this week that, unless the shutdown is quickly quashed, military personnel will not be able to participate in the event.
Meanwhile, the show must go on, and so America’s allies to the north will step in.
The Snowbirds, red-and-white Tutor trainer jets familiar to Canadians from their appearances at Toronto’s CNE airshow and other events across the country, will have pride of place in the Fleet Week show this coming weekend.
Fleet Week has taken place annually over the Columbus Day Weekend since 1981. The only year that saw the event cancelled was 2013, when a 16-day U.S. government shutdown overlapped with the event. This time, organizers decided to keep going with a reduced set of performances and fly-bys.
(The Blue Angels told the San Francisco Chronicle that their appearance is “paused” rather than “cancelled,” in the hopes that the government may be up and running again by Friday.)
This will be the second time in a month that the Royal Canadian Air Force has saved America’s bacon. Last weekend’s Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach, Calif., had to go on minus the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds teams thanks to the shutdown.
But the nine-strong Snowbirds team stepped up as the headliners of the show , alongside some Royal Air Force planes and parachutists from the U.K., and a number of non-military teams and pilots not affected by the shutdown.
“Thank God Canada is not the 51st state yet,” Kevin Elliott, director of the show, told the New York Times , presumably in jest.
He added that the organizers had been scrambling to rearrange the lineup around the sudden no-shows, but was relieved that the Snowbirds could “show up and, in a sense, save the day.”
The Blue Angels are scheduled to appear in at least three more airshows over the next month: one in Georgia on the weekend of Oct. 17; and two in Florida on Oct. 25-26 and Nov. 1-2. There are no plans for the Snowbirds to fly in any of those shows. National Post has contacted the team for comment.
The U.S. government shut down on Oct. 1. The longest shutdown in the nation’s history is 35 days, and began in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
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