I mean yes, I love airshows, but there's something about a mass celebration of these machines of death where a crowd gathered for a completely unrelated purpose gets to see the last thing an afghan child at a wedding sees gives ick in a way that normal airshows, even with all the military recruitment and propaganda don't.

It doesn't even apply to all flyovers, sometimes it's like F-14s or Chinooks or WWII era planes where the message isn't so dark.

yyyyyyyes but it’s also expensive and thoroughly weird when compared to the rest of the world… so whilst it does serve a legitimate purpose, it’s worth noting those points too

Piling on the list of negatives - they use leaded fuel, which is bad for you. I still like planes though

not at all - they’re all exactly the same… i’m just noting that there are reasons to do them beyond only propaganda and nationalism

The whole purpose of those flybys is to glamorize and advertise the same planes they use to drop bombs.

In many other countries, their military acrobatics teams don't even use true military jets.

New Zealand's Black Falcons use propeller-based trainers. Japan's Blue Impulse team uses Kawasaki T-4 based trainers. Britain's Red Arrows and Finland's Midnight Hawks use BAE Hawk trainers. Australia's Roulettes use turboprop trainers. Canada's snowbirds use Canadair Tutor trainers.

you can, but as i said at the end of the comment: you have to do it anyway… you either entirely waste the fuel, maintenance, and pilot time, or you use it for something

in a couple of comments people have said they think it’s “plain old cool” and “a mini air show”

propaganda? perhaps

but people also seem to enjoy it… better than entirely wasting it