In a gesture of international cooperation and solidarity, the U.S. Navy announced at Sun n Fun that its famed Blue Angels flight demo team will, on a trial basis, merge with the Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds team for the remainder of the 2014 season. The new combined team will be called the Snow Angels and will fly its first show in Chicago in May with a last-minute appearance at AirVenture as a possibility. A spokesman for both teams said the name Bluebirds was originally considered but rejected as too obvious and not nearly butch enough.
Because of performance differences between the Snowbirds CF 114 Tudors and the Blue Angels F-18 Hornets, the two teams wont actually fly routines together but will alternate each show, with one team flying and the other performing precision taxi maneuvers, including a new maneuver called runway chicken which the Snow Angels spokesman described as unique, exciting and potentially explosive.
Meanwhile, the Florida state legislature for the 13th time in as many years failed to pass a bill that would allow the actual hunting of snowbirds-the two-legged variety, not the flight demonstration version. We recognize that this bill would potentially harm tourism in the state, including Sun n Fun, said Will Weatherford, Floridas speaker of the house. He denied reports that cars with Canadian plates were being detained at the Florida-Georgia state line.
