Even the airshows that the military flies at are often primarily civilian shows. The military clearly has recruiting and power demonstration goals but airshows in general exist outside of those goals. The majority of the aviators at these shows are civilian hobbyists.

They work for recruitment because... they're cool.

I don't understand this comment. If you want to be the minimally charitable + maximally accurate commenter your tone suggests, then you're also wrong.

It's a superset of the reasons you poorly articulated, and those reasons would include the fact it's cool. Cool things can help both recruitment and morale, and the US military seems to recognize that: https://armedforcessports.defense.gov/Sports/Esports/

If this is just meant to be another comment on the situation which comes with an implicit grain of salt, then the browbeating doesn't make sense.

Sure that's why the bean counters wrote the checks for them, but that's not the reason people attend. People attend because they are a spectacle.

Agreed, it's amazing they don't crash more often, given the complexity of it all.

> You can do advanced maneuvers without getting so close to another plane in some weird attempt at simulating a scenario that will never happen.

That is likely true. However, it is a heck of a demonstration of pilot skill. The Blue Angels somewhat regularly post in-cockpit views of their airshow practice and it is wild how tight a formation they fly; I really recommend seeking out some of those videos, it is totally worth it. Well, for me at least :). It is not unheard of (but not common) for them to inadvertently make contact, since they fly like 18 inches apart, but given they have nearly identical vectors it does not often result in a crash.

Also I think most of the fatalities in aerial shows are civilian pilots. Control out every nonmilitary flight when considering the risk.

You might want to double check that LLM... If theres 2000 shows and 1-2 deaths, that's 0.05%-0.1%. still too high, but given the simple math error I think the other numbers are probably suspect too

Don't trust LLMs. They are bullshit machines.

What's your source for claiming "[the US] uses like 50% more healthcare services than a typical single-payer society"?

Personal take-home pay for physicians is 8-10% of total US healthcare spending ($5tr). (or 20%/$1.11t for "physician and clinical services" overall which includes doctors, clinical staff, admin, and overhead costs.)

US total spending on pharmaceuticals is $1 tr; net spending on outpatient prescription drugs is $600b.

The DoD's total spending is $961.6b for FY 2026.

There's little argument against reforming both military spending and healthcare spending in the US, but (as Scott Galloway says) it's awfully hard to find a prominent politician who vocally supports reforming both these (not one at the expense of the other). So, the out-of-control spending/borrowing will continue.

Anyway, as to this crash, all other considerations apart, E/A-18Gs (electronic warfare planes) cost 60% more than F-18s. Who authorized flying them in an airshow?

Thanks for your valuable contribution.