No. They are for recruitment and showing other nations what is on hand in case they want to mess with them.

>insightful cynicism.

So in response you select the most naive take?

NikolaNovak 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

There are a LOT of air shows where military airplanes are a small or zero component.

I'm totally in agreement that armed forces are there for reasons you described. But an "air show" is a massive and sometimes separate Venn diagram. There are air shows where main thing is thousands of private airplanes coming from across the country to be together and meet up and have fun.

Put it other way, if armed forces decided it's not worth the recruitment investment and pulled out, air shows would still happen :). For most sizes air shows, the biplane aerobatic stunt done by a crazy local 50 year old real estate agent, is way more fun than the c5 galaxy transporter showing "short takeoff" :-)

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kube-system an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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justin66 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

	▲	nearlyepic an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but the purpose is recruitment. They wouldn't do them if they didn't get anything out of them, and what they get out of them is PR and boosts to recruitment efforts.

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BoorishBears 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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operatingthetan 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Don't make things up or project based on your perception of tone.

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BoorishBears an hour ago | parent [-]

It's not (just) my perception, most socially aware people would interpret the sign off:

> So in response you select the most naive take?

As well as your reply to me now, as having an unduly negative tone... at least, given the lack of substance or importance.

(Ironically, I have less of hang up on meaningful arguments delivered with edge than most people.)

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an hour ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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bigyabai an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

They're being rude, but right. Burying your head in the sand is not an intellectually gratifying response to barbazoo's comment, and the actual meat of their answer ("because they're cool") is obviously incorrect.

Both are unprofessional comments, but only the original was dishonest. The "too many comments" shtick is a thought terminating cliche that shouldn't be encouraged on HN.

	▲	mlyle 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		People demand airshows because they're cool. The military participates in airshows because it's good for morale, because it helps showcase capabilities, because it's good PR for military expenditures, and because it's good for recruitment. All of these effects are mostly because it's cool. The other people flying in airshows are flying there because they love aviation and because it's cool (not so much the money :)
	▲	BoorishBears an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Again, they're not even right if we're going maximum correctness here... Maximally correct answer is "there are many reasons with complex interplay", and those reasons do include the fact it's cool! Being cool has interplay with morale, recruitment, and even their ham-fisted attempt at referencing geopolitics. They'd be "more right" if they said in addition, but they just straight up said "No." (Also where did you read a too many comments shtick?)

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lelandbatey 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.