A Brief Primer on the USAF Thunderbirds

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 05/29/2015 at 10:12 • Filed to: Planelopnik, Thunderbirds, USAF, US Air Force, Air Shows

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Late May is the start of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and nothing says air show like an aerial demonstration team. Fancy jet displays have become almost as synonymous with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that is summer as beer brats on the grill, classic cars at the Rosie’s Diner parking lot and letting your expanding gut hang loose. The Air Force Thunderbirds and their Navy Blue Angels brethren are the go-to people for filling the skies with raw power, both at home and abroad. Aerial demonstration teams have spread all over the globe and have for decades been the centerpieces of seasonal mass-outdoor gatherings.

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What is an Aerial Demonstration Team?

A Japanese Self-Defense Air Force Blue Impulse T-4 trainer makes a low pass, from Wikipedia Public Domain

Aerial demonstration teams are pretty self-explanatory - they show off fancy aerobatic maneuvers in fancy jets for the public (and foreign nations) to see. The aerobatics themselves don’t have much value in combat, especially in the age of beyond-visual range missiles (and in fact certain maneuvers only serve to slow the plane down for an easy lock-on) but they do show off the skill and proficiency of the best pilots a nation’s air force has to offer. This makes the taxpayer take notice of their defense investment - and other nations of who will knock on their door if certain governments or despots are into sabre-rattling. Aerial demonstration teams have become an important and almost mandatory diplomatic tool in their own right - they travel to other countries as goodwill ambassadors and entertainers while simultaneously saying “ don’t you dare start something because we will literally shoot you down before you can blink .” Multiple demonstration teams gathering together in one place also ends up being a mini-exercise, necessitating logistical and support collaboration (and you can’t have enough cooperative training in that). And of course a little friendly rivalry and competition doesn’t hurt either.

Of course, demonstration teams are also worth domestic investment in the same way the Navy dumped money into the production of Top Gun - it’s a really cool and awesome-looking recruiting tool. You can also argue the entertainment factor alone is a valuable public service, attracting thousands of people to vendor hotspots and providing a boost to the local economy.

The Brazilian Air Force !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flies in formation with Embraer Tucano trainers. Image by Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom used under Creative Commons license.

Demonstration teams also provide a relative measure of a nation’s air projection capability. Bigger nations like the US and Russia are going to send their teams around in F-16 and F/A-18 supersonic multi-role fighters and Su-27 Flanker air superiority fighters. Poorer nations have to make do with jet or propeller trainers, or even commercially available aircraft like the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Thunderbirds and Blue Angels didn’t always fly the latest and greatest, but at least tried to find a platform that both represented the service and fit their unique requirements. Neither were they always successful with that.

The History of the Thunderbirds

The Thunderbirds were formally established on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , making this Memorial Day the 62nd anniversary of the team’s existence. They started out in the F-84 Thunderjet (pictured above), not quite the hottest thing in the inventory but again broadly representative of the service and befitting the team’s requirements. They later switched to the swept-wing F-84F Thunderstreak variant. The performance of both aircraft is more or less similar to that of modern jet trainers and even some high-end turboprops like the Super Tucano and PC-21 - remember, this is just after the Korean War and the -84s worked very well for public demonstration.

If you thought the F-84s were a bit pedestrian even for the time, you didn’t have long to wait - just three years later they switched to the F-100 Super Sabre, which was the latest and greatest thing the Air Force had to offer at the time. It was the first fighter in the inventory capable of supersonic speeds in level flight - and, oh yeah, that was something the Thunderbirds actually did (permission-dependent) until the no-fun-allowed Federal Aviation Administration put a stop to it (or so claims !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ). Either way, having the windows of your food truck get blown out from a low-speed pass kind of sucks the fun out.

The demands of the airshow circuit put a great strain on the F-100’s airframe, and it was a tricky beast to fly as it pushed the envelope as much as then-current aerospace engineering would allow. Just as the F-84s before, it was time to upgrade to something...well, let’s just say someone in that decision-making position made a really bizarre choice.

The Thunderbirds “upgraded” to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Why? I don’t know. Why was it such a big deal? The F-84 and F-100 before were your general classic fighter planes - just like the ones from the storied epics of WWII, just with jet engines and in the latter case able to break the speed of sound. Both had extremely limited radars at best with ranges not much greater than what you’d find on a Hyundai showroom (and that’s not much of an exaggeration either) - they were primary day fighters relying on the stick skills of the brain in the cockpit to line up guns against the enemy. The F-105 “Thud” couldn’t be any more different. Sure, it had a big powerful engine, but more to lift as much bombload as a B-17 than to duke it out with light and nimble MiGs. And you wouldn’t tell from its fighter jet proportions and single-seat configuration but it’s literally as big as a B-17, too. In fact early models had an internal bomb bay specifically for lobbing nukes at air defense sites across the Iron Curtain, which was considered its primary mission. Needless to say it was really a bomber despite what that “F” in “F-105” wants to tell you.

So you can imagine what kind of fun time the Thunderbirds had with this as their ride. As it turned out, it wasn’t a very long ride - after a very short stint and the crash of a Thud from stressed-induced structural failure (gee how shocking) resulting in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , they went back to their Super Sabres until something more suitable can be found.

At the height of the Vietnam Era the Thunderbirds flew the plane that would define that era for the Air Force - the F-4 Phantom II. This was also the only time they shared a common type with the Blue Angels. The Phantom isn’t exactly a Miata with jets either, but it was better than the Thunderchief and the Thunderbird pilots were all too familiar with what was the premiere tactical aircraft of all three flying military branches. In a lot of ways it was a lot like the muscle cars that also dominated that era - fast, loud and a gas guzzler. Yes, when the Malaise Era hit hard, even the Thunderbirds had to downsize.

Fortunately they didn’t have to be stuck with grenade-engine Vegas or firebomb Pintos. The T-38 Talon was a hot little thing that in many ways is a lot like a jet Miata. Yes, it was an unarmed trainer. No, it wasn’t exactly something that could go toe-to-toe with serious fighters the same way an F-4 Phantom II can. But in comparison it validated the “add lightness” mantra and boy could it fly like nothing else. The Air Force and Navy used the single-seat armed variant, the F-5 Freedom Fighter/Tiger II to simulate tiny MiGs and they routinely flew circles around front-line F-4s.

Like the aircraft that came before, the T-38s simply wore out under the heavy show schedule year in and year out. The fatal crash of one in 1982 due to wear issues highlighted the need for replacement airframes, and the Thunderbirds were declared ready to go with the USAF’s latest and greatest toy at the time, the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Thunderbirds have been flying with them ever since, swapping out worn-out birds with low-time ones. They will likely keep flying the Falcons until the only ones left in the boneyards are worn-out deathtraps no longer useful for anything but !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , at which point the Thunderbirds will likely have F-35s available - again, representing the primary (in fact close to only) tactical aircraft operating at that time.

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Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 05/29/2015 at 10:29

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I absolutely HATE the Thunderchickens. Story time kids!

So, a lot of you are aware that I used to be an aircraft mechanic in the USAF, specifically on the A-10. Well, we had the T-chickens at DM for what’s called A&A Days. In the aircraft maintenance community, we fuck with each other. You mess with your co-workers, other squadrons at the same base, other squadrons when you/they are TDY (temporary duty), etc. One of the things that is done, is “zapping” aircraft.

The goal is to place a sticker of your squadron patch somewhere on the aircraft, specifically somewhere that will take a while to find. Now, it’s all in good fun and turns into quite the game sometimes. As an example, when we were swapping jets into/out of Afghanistan, we zapped A-10s from Spangdahlem inside panels that we knew we could open without having to make a forms writeup, but would take quite some time to be found. They did the same thing with our jets. Well, The Chickens like to zap stuff, just like any other maintainer. However, we were threatened with some serious punishment if any of our zaps were found on ANY Chicken equipment. This was apparently due to some idiot zapping the canopy of a Chicken and the canopy needing to be replaced at a hefty cost.

Anyway, I’m still bitter about the double standard for those assholes.

Oh, I ended up zapping one of the F-15 East and Viper West jets on the line where our CSAR demo planes were sitting.

Jcarr > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole 05/29/2015 at 10:44

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A preview of what the F-35 might look like someday:

ttyymmnn > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole 05/29/2015 at 10:45

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I think you'll enjoy this article. There’s some discussion of Zapping. It’s also just a good piece. It's about Navy pilots, though.

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviat…

f86sabre > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 05/29/2015 at 10:46

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Nice write up. The TBirds and Blues are ALWAYS worth the effort of catching them. The out on great shows. While recruiting efforts are part of the business case for both teams, it is also a value as it allows normal people to interact with the military.

Also, not only are the Jets and pilots a big deal, but the whole support team is hand picked and it is a big honor. It is always cool to see them in action.

I was able to see the RAF Red Arrows fly at the Goodwood FOS a few years ago. They fly trainers, but they put on an amazing 9 ship show that needs to be seen.

ttyymmnn > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 05/29/2015 at 10:48

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You’re stealing my thunder (birds). I am going to have an entry in next week’s history post about the start of the Tbirds. Nothing this lengthy, though. Maybe I’ll just steal this!

Nice job. Although, I think the Blue Angels fly a better show. :D

ttyymmnn > Jcarr 05/29/2015 at 10:49

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Don't hold your breath. Neat shop, though.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > ttyymmnn 05/29/2015 at 10:52

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I’d go drinking with that FE anytime.

I have a friend who is an FE on the E-3. He has some hilarious stories that I can’t share, mainly to protect his identity from former crew members. :)

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > Jcarr 05/29/2015 at 10:53

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Junk.

Jcarr > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole 05/29/2015 at 11:02

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I don’t know, I think it looks pretty decent. I know the F-35 is easy to hate on, but given the choice between this and a drone or nothing, I’d take this.

Jcarr > ttyymmnn 05/29/2015 at 11:05

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Yeah, I seriously wonder if there’s a future for the ‘Birds and Angels beyond the F-16 and -18.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > Jcarr 05/29/2015 at 11:11

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I hate the F-35, not for the obvious “they’re trying to take the A-10’s JERBS!!!”, but for the fact that it’s an incapable, overpriced, piece of shit. The cost overruns are ridiculous, it’s having issues with the weapons loadouts its supposed to carry, and it can’t use regular JP-8 from a standard fuel truck because it’s a temperamental fucking travesty!

I hate the F-22 for similar reasons (cost overruns, that fucking OBOGS that killed pilots, etc).

In all honesty, I’d rather the Chickens get disbanded. There are demo teams like Viper East/West, F-15 East/West, etc that do an awesome job of showing off the capabilities of the airframes, for much less cost.