AC Golden Knights Airshow Cancelled Due to Budget Cuts – Feds Being too Trivial? [POLL]

About a month ago, I’d said it was no big deal that the Air Force flyover had been cancelled before the Daytona 500 due to the Federal sequestration.

My thinking was that it wasn’t necessary to have flyovers before major events such as the big race, Super Bowl, World Series, etc.

And if corporate sponsors could come up with the money to finance the airshows, then so be it.

I see it differently now.

It seems as though a good many air shows involving the Golden Knights are being cancelled out of spite over the logjam in Washington.

Any of us that have looked forward to seeing the Golden Knights air show and parachute demonstrations will now be denied that small pleasure.

Do you have a problem with these programs being cancelled?

In our neck of the woods,

Federal budget cuts have caused the U.S. Army Golden Knights to cancel their appearance at the Atlantic City Airshow in June, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Joe Kelly, president of the Greater Atlantic City Chamber, said the chamber was told of the cancellation yesterday but has decided to move forward with the airshow. It will instead focus on booking more commercial acts – a decision that will likely increase the costs of putting on the show.

The military parachute team was the only major military team performance planned for the June 26 show. It will mark the first time since the show’s modern revival a decade ago that the lineup will not include any military teams.

“These things are out of our control,” Kelly said. “We’ve decided that we are definitely committed to doing a show.

We had a ‘what-if’ plan in place, and together with our airboss, we’re identifying commercial acts that can come in and bridge the gap.”

That’s not the only one.

Among one of the bigger ones is the Chicago Air and Water Show.
According to this:


Just hours after it was reported that the Air Force Thunderbirds were cancelling their appearance at the Chicago Air & Water Show in August due to sequester funding cuts, NBC5-Chicago reported late Tuesday that the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team has also cancelled all of its air show engagements effective April 1, including their scheduled performance at the Chicago event, Aug. 17-18.

The reason? It's the "s" word, the sequestration battle in Washington, D.C., which as forced the government to pull billions of dollars of funding from all sorts of programs, including Defense Department military air show teams.

According to a report by NBC5-Chicago, the Thunderbirds, celebrating their 60th anniversary this year, have cancelled all air shows after April 1. "Due to the impact of sequestration, all participation in air shows and flyovers after April 1 have been canceled," said Maj. Darrick Lee, spokesman for the Air Force Thunderbirds.

In past years, the Thunderbirds have performed at the Chicago show in rotation with the Navy Blue Angels. The precision flying squads are the highlights of the event, which draws more than two million spectators to the lake front each year.

The Thunderbirds have more than 60 events on their schedule for 2013 which would be cancelled if funding for the program is not restored.

There are so many things Congress and the President can agree on to cut out of the budget; although that hasn’t happened yet.

After all, it didn’t take long for the College of Cardinals to pick a new Pope.

Why should it be taking our leaders in Washington so long to agree on a new budget?

In the meantime, shows like the Golden Knights fall by the wayside, victim of the Beltway’s petty politics.