90s Tomcats tearing up a canyon

[macidcrook]

Here is a great video i found that i haven't seen on here. With only 9k views it doesn't seem to wide spread.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by macidcrook
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[Deano87]

I wish the Navy would've had an official "heritage squadron" and kept a few to be flown at airshows and events. It makes more sense to me than cutting them all up so Iran won't get spare parts, even though they still manage to keep theirs flying.

 

Yeah that would be amazing. At least then you’d get to see some of these older jets flying. :cry:

[KlarSnow]

Start looking up how expensive it is to maintain these jets, and then you will understand why there are not any/many of them flying.

 

Military jets, especially twin engined ones are ridiculously expensive to maintain. Especially once you consider that any sources for spares have probably dried up, so you are now fabricating your own or scavenging them off of other aircraft.

 

This is not to say that dedicated collectors/millionaires/groups cannot do this, but it becomes fairly obvious why certain aircraft (mig-15/17, Hawker Hunters, the occasional F-104, T-38s) that are relatively simple have been maintained on the personal market/airshow circuit, and others have not. Also look at how many of the more complex aircraft (hunter, F-104 etc) there actually are that are flying and realize that those are going to be far simpler (for the most part) than any of the heavy metal we would like to see.

 

Bottom line, military aircraft, especially twin engine fighter jets are prohibitively expensive to maintain and operate safely by anything other than government level budgets.

[Deano87]

Well yeah but I think SVTONY and I were talking about a fictional world where the Navy kept a couple of these aircraft serviceable for historic purposes and stockpiled spares while the fleet were being retired rather than them all being destroyed to stop them falling into Iranian hands. :/

 

One can dream eh?

[macidcrook]

Even as expensive as it would be to maintain them, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the defense budget. move some funding from weaponizing cockroaches and we would have a surplus for heritage flight maintenance haha

[hansangb]

that afterburner shot at the end! DAMN.

[Emmy]

Just a little perspective on operating costs...

 

An acquaintance of mine who is also a very good photographer paid $500,000 to the Collings Foundation for 30 minutes of flight time with their F-4 and F-100F for an air to air shoot.

His day job is SVP at Microsoft.

 

Even governments don't have bottomless pockets to be able to "keep a few jets around" just as Show ponies.

[Deano87]

Just a little perspective on operating costs...

 

An acquaintance of mine who is also a very good photographer paid $500,000 to the Collings Foundation for 30 minutes of flight time with their F-4 and F-100F for an air to air shoot.

His day job is SVP at Microsoft.

 

Even governments don't have bottomless pockets to be able to "keep a few jets around" just as Show ponies.

 

He may have paid the foundation that much but an F-4 and F-100 do not cost that much to fly for half an hour. The Vulcan bomber we had flying here in the UK up until recently cost about £20k an hour to run. I’d be surprised if either of those jets were in excess of that.

[Greekbull]

There was a proposal by Dale Snodgrass to keep a F-14 Heritage flight going with Private Funding. All he needed was an approval and a few airframes...because of the worry of Iran getting their hands on parts it was denied. It is a shame the Navy and Air Force don't maintain Heritage flights of old historic airframes....and yes I'm very aware of the Air Force Heritage flights they do at some air shows with Private Mustangs, Sabres, even the Heritage F-4..

[Deano87]

There was a proposal by Dale Snodgrass to keep a F-14 Heritage flight going with Private Funding. All he needed was an approval and a few airframes...because of the worry of Iran getting their hands on parts it was denied. It is a shame the Navy and Air Force don't maintain Heritage flights of old historic airframes....and yes I'm very aware of the Air Force Heritage flights they do at some air shows with Private Mustangs, Sabres, even the Heritage F-4..

 

AWWWWWW MAAAN... Thats even more depressing that they actually tried to make it happen and didn't get anywhere, Snodgrass himself even!

 

:mad:

Edited November 28, 2018 by Deano87