COCOA BEACH, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds unveiled their redesigned air show demonstration on Tuesday featuring new maneuvers plus an updated ground show presentation.
For the first time in nearly 40 years, the Thunderbirds have overhauled their entire flight demonstration. The announcement comes on the eve of their first air show weekend of the year.
During an exclusive video conference which included this reporter, the squadron discussed their updated performance layout. The team acknowledged they designed a performance that is more than just ‘aerial maneuvers all over the place’.
Thunderbirds New Demonstration is Go!
Their shortened air show season in 2020 allowed for the Thunderbirds to redesign their entire demonstration. Changes to the ground and aerial shows now provide a reduction in total time from 90 down to 50 minutes.
“One of the main goals we had was to take a look at our show sequence,” Thunderbirds commander and lead pilot Col. John Caldwell explained. “We’ve changed the high, low, flat, and contingency shows. That is an incredible lift for this squadron.”
America’s Ambassador’s in Blue looked to the air show organizers across the country, and the guests in attendance last season. The public’s feedback provided the Thunderbirds with enough information on how to change their show for the better.
“We looked at all of our maneuvers,” Thunderbird’s right wing pilot Maj Zane Taylor said during our call. “We looked at ones that were redundant that probably showed the same thing to the crowd and be illuminated.”
Six maneuvers were cut trimming their flight time from 45 to 30 minutes. They added new maneuvers, too, including a few sneaky passes.
During the last decade, their high show averaged up to 47 minutes forcing their F-16 Fighting Falcons to land on fumes. Col. Caldwell noted that the Thunderbirds have only changed their demonstration two previous times in their 68 year history.
“That’s when we started the team and we had nothing, we built a 15 minute show. It was done again unfortunately in 1982 when we had the diamond crash and we had to rebuild the show with the F-16.”
New Phases of the Thunderbirds Aerial Show
The updated show will highlight many sequences beginning with the grand opening with high vertical maneuvers. They then reset the tempo to their precision section – ‘formation flying at it’s finest’.
Precision maneuvers will include lower, flat formations close to the crowd line. As the show continues the guests will then watch as the jets move higher in altitude.
The next phase is speed and motion in which the jets fly fast at each other from multiple locations. The tempo increases the excitement as they build to a high energy portion of the show.
Their first finally begins with their slow high alpha maneuver. They then move to their strength and power phase as they demonstrate how tight the F-16C can turn. Expect a lot of afterburner usage.
They will then move to their patriotic pride and teamwork phase with all six aircraft.
“We’re doing really slow kind of beautiful maneuvers,” “It’s going to be very graceful and cascading as guests looking high in the air.”
The final finally then gets underway with the delta burst coming back together. The solos will make a few final maneuvers, and the high bomb burst will close out the demonstration.
The ground show by the aircraft maintainers has also been shortened from 35 minutes to 15 minutes. Hand signals now replace voice communications as they replicate an actual Air Force jet launch.
“We’ve shortened down the number of steps to launch the aircraft,” Thunderbirds maintenance officer Capt. Mike Bell said during the video call. “What we want the crowd to feel is how fast those aircraft went from engine start to taxi to airborne.”
They kept the important ground aspects including the precision, facing movements, and aircraft taxi. Bell added, “We preserved all that, but we made it more efficient.”
Col. Caldwell, now in his third season with the Thunderbirds, is excited for the public to watch them at an air show. He hopes the Thunderbirds will inspire air show guests and the future of America’s Airmen.
“The best is to be on the air show line, feeling the thunder in your chest, hearing the jets roar by,” Col. Caldwell added. “Seeing the speed and motion, and seeing the heights that this demo team can fly 18-inches apart for the American public.”
(Charles A Atkeison reports on aerospace and technology. Follow his updates via social media @Military_Flight.)