They’ll soar right over any billboards from “insufferable, fringe activists.”
Cost and the environment, apparently, are not an object.
The U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron will be back over the skies of Seattle and buzzing Capitol Hill this week.
It has been a tradition broken only for two wonderfully quiet, military propaganda-free summers of the pandemic.
The annual performances of the Blue Angels in this weekend’s Boeing Seafair Airshow over Lake Washington and the city will start, as usual, with a roar Tuesday as the first jet arrives. Six more Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet jets plus the big ol’ C-130 Hercules “Fat Albert” will follow Wednesday with practices and performances starting Thursday through the weekend, according to the Museum of Flight’s schedule:
Tuesday, July 29
12:00 PM | Blue Angel #7 Arrival
Wednesday, July 30
12:30 PM | C-130 Hercules “Fat Albert” Arrival
1:30 PM | Blue Angels #1-6 Arrival
Thursday, July 31
1:15 PM to 2:30 PM | Air Show Performer Practice
Practice flights for all air show participants, excluding Blue Angels2:30 PM to 3:40 PM | Blue Angels Practice Flight
Friday, August 1
12:40 PM to 1:00 PM | PBY 5A Catalina
1:00 PM to 1:15 PM | MicroJet
1:15 PM to 1:40 PM | U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning
1:40 PM to 2:10 PM | U.S. Air Force F-16 with P-51 Historical Flight
2:10 PM to 2:20 PM | U.S. Army AH-64
3:30 PM to 3:45 PM | Melissa Burns Aerobatics
3:35 PM to 3:45 PM | C-130 Hercules “Fat Albert”
3:45 PM to 4:50 PM | Blue Angels Air Show Performance
Saturday, August 2 and Sunday, August 3
12:40 PM to 1:00 PM | PBY 5A Catalina
1:00 PM to 1:15 PM | MicroJet
1:15 PM to 1:40 PM | U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning
1:40 PM to 2:10 PM | U.S. Air Force F-16 with P-51 Historical Flight
2:10 PM to 2:20 PM | U.S. Army AH-64
3:20 PM to 3:30 PM | U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue
3:30 PM to 3:45 PM | Melissa Burns Aerobatics
3:35 PM to 3:45 PM | C-130 Hercules “Fat Albert”
3:45 PM to 4:50 PM | Blue Angels Air Show Performance
Complaints over the years have failed to end the Seattle display of military might while safety protocols have shifted only a few of the performance parameters.
The Navy also uses the jets to, well, kill. Recent Super Hornet deployments include sorties in Yemen against Houthi militants with imagery showing the jets carrying Stormbreaker glide bombs. You may have also read about the USS Harry S. Truman carrier losing a jet in the Red Sea this May. That was a F/A-18 Super Hornet. Apparently it was the second lost by the carrier that week.
Flying the jets over Seattle is an expensive endeavor. The Blue Angel’s 11-jet fleet is worth more than $700 million and the program’s budget has reportedly hovered around $40 million a year depending on things like fees charged to shows like Seafair. Even with the expenditure, the Navy continues to miss its recruitment goals by around 25%.
As for Seattle’s blue — and grey — skies, critics say the airshows pour something around 650 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. You could complain but that is a teensy tiny fraction of the pollution regularly produced by the city’s industry, buildings, and your car. Sorry and enjoy the show.
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we were spared the Angels another time: during one of those “fiscal cliff” shutdown circuses we got the Patriots instead, flying Czech L-39 trainer jets lower and slower and quieter and cheaper and cleaner and (somewhat) less propagandistic- just zippy nimble airplane antics
I live directly across the street from Boeing Field. I don’t mind the planes usually, and often go to Ruby Chow Park to watch em take off and land.
The Blue Angels are an absolute nightmare and make living here a hellscape for one week a year.
All so a bunch of people can clap and point. Then go home and never talk about it all year long.
It’s bunk.
More tank parades.
A bit rich for Jason Rantz to call anyone else “insufferable”
I really need a filter to stop anything authored by them from showing up on any of my screens. So tiresome.
It’s 3 days and brings immense joy to millions of people. Get off your high horse folks.
Today in hyperbole
Immense joy to millions of people? There are just over 2 million people in King County, the vast majority of whom are not at Seafair events, and curse every time the extremely loud warplanes suddenly disrupts their day without warning. People leave the city for the weekend specifically because of the Blue Angels. There are plenty of people not getting “immense joy.”
If I was on a high horse, it would probably throw me off after being terrified by four days of a passing low-flying war machine.
I just want all the people of Seattle to be able to enjoy our annual Fleet Week and maritime heritage celebration. The Blue Angels hoopla has become a very unfun wedge in what is supposed to be a time to gather with neighbors, watch Navy people hit the town like poets on payday, and watch kids in parades. It also frosts my cookies that all the armchair warriors that would be the first to defend their own rights are definitely not considering the needs and rights of others. All this “well get out of town when it’s happening” bs generally going around as if people are really supposed to find a campground or hotel in peak tourist season that will take them and their scared pets? All this “well you must hate Seattle or America” or “high horse” bs when my family is full of Navy and maritime people… like dudes, I love my neighbors and this town and that makes me more Seafair than you or the Blue Angels will ever be.
Many of us don’t like war machines that kill people, evil Boeing, and jingoism sorry
This is one of my least favorite weeks of the year here, to be honest; usually-lovely weather aside, it sucks to walk around in a constant state of heightened stress from random loud flyovers. I know I’m a lot more easily startled than most folks, though.
Take pride in the fact that UsNavy jets protect our lives stop nuclear proliferation in Iran and stop shipping being bombed by terrorists like the Houthi. Stand tall above the small minds.
Our annual celebration of PTSD.
“… a teensy tiny fraction …”. How does that make it OK? So, if all the sources propagandized a teensy tiny fraction, we’d all be able to breathe easier.
ugh.
I would wager the vast majority of the people complaining aren’t native Seattleites. 4th generation Seattleite here. Seafair, including the Blue Angels, is tradition and has brought people fun and community for decades. Your feigned outrage could probably be channeled towards the actual major problems we have in our country right now. I’m a liberal as I’m sure most people here are. Is it war propaganda? Sure, but we’re surrounded by war propaganda all the time as a country. Is it bad for the environment? Yeah, so are the idling cars sitting on I5 this month during roadwork. At the end of the day you should ask yourself if trying to tear down a tradition that many of us grew up with and love is a good use of your time…or should you focus on actual problems? If it’s so annoying to you maybe go back to California or Portland for the weekend where I’m sure most of you are actually from.
I would wager the vast majority of the people complaining aren’t native Seattleites. 4th generation Seattleite here. Seafair, including the Blue Angels, is tradition and has brought people fun and community for decades. Your feigned outrage could probably be channeled towards the actual major problems we have in our country right now. I’m a liberal as I’m sure most people here are. Is it war propaganda? Sure, but we’re surrounded by war propaganda all the time as a country. Is it bad for the environment? Yeah, so are the idling cars sitting on I5 this month during roadwork. At the end of the day you should ask yourself if trying to tear down a tradition that many of us grew up with and love is a good use of your time…or should you focus on actual problems? If it’s so annoying to you maybe go back to California or Portland for the weekend where I’m sure most of you are actually from.
Please tell me you people aren’t really miserable 24/7 like it seems. “everything sucks…wah wah wah”
It really feels like my city has become a sandbox full of crybabies.