QBall QBall:
The Air Force does this ALL..THE..TIME! Every time their budget is threatened the first thing they do is threaten to axe the Snowbirds. The public gets upset because they like to watch the shiny birds, the government concedes and a few years later we do it over again. However the Air Force knows the Snowbirds are a valuable recruiting tool for themselves. I say call them on it. Let's see if they're really willing to axe their gravy train. The Air Force always pulls this crap to protect their budget, no one would dare cut the army's budget, so it's up to the Navy to make sacrifices in it's budget to procure equipment because the Navy is rarely in the public eye.
I think this gentleman has it right.
The Snowbirds should be seen as in the 'nice to have' category. They don't add to our combat effectiveness and really, Air Command is hardly a 'teeth' arm anymore. A Squadron of Apaches would be more use than those ancient Tudors.
We have zero fast jets in Afghanistan giving air support to our infantry and the Griffons can just about take off with a full ammo load with their Army manned machine gunners.
How sad is that? Air Command can't even provide Air Gunners?
The RCAF had no problem manning the turrets of Lancaster’s in 1941 and on.
Canada doesn't have an Air Force. That ended in 1969 when the RCAF was disbanded by the Liberals. Now we just have Air Command, defending the approaches to the St Lawrence and keeping CF18’s away from doing CAP’s in the ‘Stan.