What Is the Cost of Each Blue Angel Jet
Let's put a price tag on that Fleet Week Blue Angels show
A breakdown of the real cost for the military airshow spectacle
Fleet Week is more than just an airshow, but this weekend really wouldn't feel complete without a visit from the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.
Between the amazing acrobatics of the Navy's F/A18 Hornets and ship tours, it makes for a bit of an air and sea cruise week.
Best of all, much of the spectacle can be enjoyed for free (this detail is up for debate, as it's a lot easier to take it all in for "free" if you have a boat, and it's decidedly not free if you want to watch from the airshow seats at the Marina Green).
If you're a lucky media or military member, you might have even gotten to ride in one of the Angels or the normally accompanying C-130, Fat Albert. This reporter enjoyed one heck of a ride in Fat Albert last summer, something more akin to a roller coaster than any airplane ride I had ever taken before.
But this year I couldn't help but wonder what all this awe and wonder-inspiring show really cost.
The short answer is, a lot of money.
I first set out to capture simply the fuel costs for the Blue Angels show. It turns out, nailing that number down is no easy task.
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The internet has some varying estimates that lack sourcing, and I initially couldn't seem to get an answer, but I did find a 2001 Duluth News Tribune article that put the fuel use at about 1,300 gallons per plane per 75-minute show. Figuring for the seven planes (six fly in the show) at average jet fuel costs, it runs about $40,950 per show. The Navy's Blue Angels public affairs office eventually confirmed the estimate.
But that doesn't get at the full cost of the show, so I settled on the U.S. Navy budget request for 2017, where the baseline cost for the Blue Angels program is detailed out.
The budget for 2016 is $35,475,000. This year, according to the Angels' schedule, they will perform 56 demonstrations (32 show weekends, but not all are two-day events). That's counting two-day shows like SF Fleet Week as two demonstrations, for those taking notes.
Now, that budget includes 46 practice sessions back at Naval Air Station Pensacola, plus travel to and from all the shows, fuel, maintenance, and pretty much all the costs specifically associated with the Blue Angels program (which, by the way, falls under the recruiting and advertising portion of the budget.
With a quick calculation, I come up with a per-demonstration cost of $633,482.14. That means that, for this year's upcoming show, including practice and two demonstrations, the cost is somewhere north of $1.26 million.
That's not exactly free, if you consider that's a taxpayer-funded cost.
But then, on the environmentally conscious West Coast, I also had to wonder about the environmental impacts of all this. And that is a thing that is much harder to measure.
Jet fuel emits all the same stuff as gasoline, mostly -- carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, oxides of sulfur, unburned fuel, particulate matter and some other things, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
But the multi-million-dollar turbofan engines powering the Blue Angels' fighters don't necessarily follow the same strict emissions standards that car engines do.
And calculating the exact amount from the jets and then all the passenger cars traveling to and from the festivities all week is near impossible. What's more, it's safe to say that the pollution created by the airshows and the races is a drop in the bucket compared the greenhouse gases generated by regular auto traffic (second only to coal electricity generation in the U.S., according to Mother Jones).
Getting back to my original query, it's safe to say that, even if you sit on a public beach or atop Marina Green to watch the Blue Angels perform during SF Fleet Week, it's not exactly free.
Daniel DeMay covers Seattle culture, business and transportation for seattlepi.com. He can be reached at 206-448-8362 ordanieldemay@seattlepi.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Daniel_DeMay.
Source: https://www.sfgate.com/local-donotuse/article/That-Blue-Angels-show-you-just-saw-wasn-t-exactly-9139046.php
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