The U.S. Navy Blue Angels will not appear at this weekend’s Wings Over North Georgia Air Show in Rome, Georgia as a result of the ongoing federal government shutdown, organizers confirmed Thursday. The decision came after the latest budget vote in the U.S. Senate failed to pass, leaving no immediate path forward for restoring government operations.
According to Atlanta News First, organizers said the Blue Angels had “continued to proceed with planning in hopes a resolution would be reached,” but with no new vote scheduled before the show, the team will not be available.
Even so, the show will continue as planned with a full slate of civilian aerobatic performers. Current ticket holders will receive a discount code for a future event at the same venue, the Richard B. Russell Regional Airport.
The cancellation is the next of several major U.S. airshows affected by the shutdown so far this month. Wings Over Houston this weekend will not include the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, while the Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach lost the Thunderbirds as well earlier this month, along with a variety of current U.S. Air Force jets including the F-35 Lighting II, F-22 Raptor, and A-10 Thunderbolt. The show nevertheless featured appearances by the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Snowbirds, as well as the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force Falcons.
Having been through my fair share of shut downs and shut down “warnings” as a government contractor, it isn’t quite as simple as that. Once a shutdown goes into effect every line item is reviewed as “essential”. So for example, OJT for controllers “typically” stops the day the shutdown starts, because while ATC is “essential,” the line item in the budget for “training” the next generation of controllers…nope, sorry, not “essential”. So even though the same controller is on the hook to work a full shift, and money is budgeted for that full shift, the only part of that shift that is “essential” is the actual time on position, NOT the time plugged in next to a controller in training. That controller in training may not even be handling traffic, so they aren’t going to rack up hours for both personnel for OJT.
Now, I said “typically,” because like everything the government does, there can be exceptions. Every shut down I’ve been through has been different, and some things change from one to the next.
In this case, the show may be in the “budget”, but the cost of maintenance, rooms for the pilots, meal per diem, and so on, may not be line items that the agency is “allowed” to make “essential.” For the same reason, the Marine Corps band and Navy band have both cancelled concerts, because in the shutdown the bands are not “essential”, even though the performers are all military members, and likely back-paid when the shutdown ends.
Ain’t it fun when our politicians play games like this?