Very true.valleyboy wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 7:04 amI have to agree, in this generation of bottom line and wanting the "big bucks" I think military demonstration teams are dreams of years gone by. The main motivation to create a team was to sell the armed forces as a career, it's not like that anymore. Young pilots entering the industry is money oriented and the first question now is how much do you pay. They also want to establish their seniority so going to the military for the large part is not going to fill their expectations and in fact be a liability due to loss of seniority.The Tudor is --so-- Canadian. It nicely symbolizes the "ancientness" of our frontline fighter fleet on the world stage. We are the "thrift" recyclers and endless maintainers of --insignificant numbers of ancient junk--.
When I was growing up there was an aura of mystery and excitement around anything to do with aviation. Now all you have to do is peruse instagram or YouTube to see everything and read forums to get the low down.
A friend of mine was doing his Group 1 initial at Pro and there was an ex-Hornet driver pretty much beside himself trying to figure out how to convert everything as fast as possible because he needed to be at AC mainline yesterday. If he made it he’s probably getting a heavy dose of what the industry is like right now.. but at least doing a bit better than his fellow AC pilots.
But yeah.. see the Snowbirds, they are very nice, but they don’t really inspire people to join up. Especially in this modern world where it isn’t sitting in a base in Germany waiting for WWIII that probably isn’t going to happen... but following the Americans on another jingoistic crusade to the sandbox to accomplish precisely nothing.
Ultimately it will be the Canadian Public who will decide. I’m sure that there is enough popular support that any disbandment of the team would never happen.