The Department of National Defence is actively considering whether to retire some older ships, planes and other items of equipment that have become difficult and costly to maintain — including the aircraft belonging to the iconic Snowbird demonstration squadron.
As a former RCAF maintainer, with procurement experience, these vague statements of ‘concern’ lead me to believe that the Snowbirds won’t last 3 more years. The end of an era is coming.
The Minister just wants to “get them a better plane”. But F18s don’t really make sense to operate just for airshows when F35s are coming. I feel that jets are so costly, and so few, that the days of dedicating more than one airframe to demonstration of just not gonna fly.
The F18 is also an antique, it made its first flight in 1978.
On a personal note I hope they stick with something relatively quiet. I got to watch weeks of the Snowbirds practicing this spring and while they are noisy, all 10 of them in the air together are quieter than 1 F18.
