Forum: Air Force Life

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/milita ... 411387.php

The Air Force has some bad news for thousands of folks who've long been thrilled at the sight of jets roaring low in formation over throngs at San Antonio air shows.

Next year's performance has been grounded.

Thanks to budget cuts, the town often called Military City, U.S.A. will have air shows every other year starting in 2013. The move, revealed by Joint Base San Antonio, came as no surprise to Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.

“When people say you can cut the budget and not hurt anything,” he said, “they're smoking pot.”

Joint Base San Antonio, which oversees support services at Fort Sam Houston and at Randolph and Lackland AFBs, said its $700 million annual operating budget will shrink by as much as a fifth. Next year's hiatus will yield big savings for the command, which spent $632,681 on this year's air show, held Oct. 29 and 30 at Randolph.

Pentagon budget cuts are taking their toll. At Fort Sam Houston, the Army will cut 71 positions by next fall, all but one of them in units on the post overseen by the Installation Management Command, said Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for U.S. Army North.

Bases elsewhere in Texas have cut back on air shows, as has the Air Force itself. Laughlin AFB in Del Rio had held a show every three years; its most recent scheduled show was set for this past September but was canceled. Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls does a show every other year. The Air Combat Command said it scaled back the six teams it's historically sponsored to one.

“Reducing the number of single-ship demonstration teams will allow us to reallocate more than 900 sorties to our wings so they can maximize their flying hours for combat readiness training, offsetting some of the reduction we've seen in flying hours,” said Lt. Col. Wesley P. “Jack” Miller IV, an Air Force spokesman.

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Sadness. The Airshow was great this year, and San Antonio is so supportive of the military.

Enthusiast Joined: Jun 10, 2010 - 02:44 AM Posts: 44

Yeah, I've been in SA for almost six years. I got to see plenty of awesome airshow practice right over our building, including the Raptor. Sad that it won't be around this year! Oh well, at least the 182nd is still across the street, so I get my Viper fix daily!

Forum: Air Force Life

Air shows being canceled