The Lions' Pride

I think its kind of sad that we have to give up part of our American tradition. I'm also really upset about nasa losing like 900 million (unsure of number). Entitlement programs are what really needs to be cut.

It's certainly a better, more appropriate way to look at it than to look at military spending irrespective of a country's economy, population, and size.

are you sure about that? I was told by a navy pilot that flyovers often come from the PR budget and not the training budget. Even if you argue that it's just fancy accounting, the training budget is getting cut too. IMO, if training is getting cut, every hour in the cockpit becomes more important and training needs to be more efficient. You'd be hard pressed to argue that flying a thousand miles to fly over a stadium is as efficient as running combat drills over the open ocean or desert.

Besides the more useful controlled drills on base done with simulators etc. are a ton more beneficial than a fly over.

Um...... no. For one, it takes a bit of work to make those flyovers happen- guys have to be on the ground at the site up on radio comms with the pilots to tell them to slow down/ speed up / ect. That's a bit different situation than two guys going out to do an air-to-air training sortie. Two, I'm not in that community (pointy-nosed jets) but I find it hard to believe that they'd be able to fit any good training around a flyover. Those guys train to put warheads on foreheads and win fights in the sky: that calls for a different type of flying than straight and level at 1,000AGL (or whatever altitude they do those flyovers at).

I say end the flyovers and save some money.

The words "Republican" and "Democrat" were only used once in this thread prior to you posting that. And that was from a "die hard republican" wanting more military cuts. Not a bad thread all things considered.

The rhetoric and argument used clearly indicates party affiliation. Same talking points.

What is done with those hours is most important and given the choice between dedicated combat or recon training vs a fly over during a budget crisis, I'll take the former. I think it might be intellectually dishonest to say for sure that experienced pilots are getting equal training in both instances. My cousin is a new F-18 pilot off the USS GW, I'd be curious to hear his take on that specific question. BTW, check out this sweet shot of him... words can't describe how jealous I am!

History is replete with lost and over run peoples who shared many of your short-sighted views on outside threats. I for one sleep better at night knowing we have the best.

As a person who has participated in multiple flyovers, I can tell you for certain that these can be treated like any other training event. Squadrons have an annual flight hours budget and it doesn't matter what day you fly. We often did other training on our way to/from the flyover sight.

A flyover is training in itself. Arriving at an event precisely at the end of the National Anthem is no different from having to have your jet at point x at an exact time to drop bombs or laze a target in a war time situation. Well, except for the being shot at part! And of course they make us fly slower than they used to.

Back to point of this thread. The media article is yet another media fear-mongering piece designed to stir up support to stop the sequester.