Time to jettison Snow Birds
The military’s favourite PR exercise, the Snow Birds are at it again with their not-always-death-defying synchronized swooping, rolling, and inverted flying antics. Flying over Kingston, ON this week and no doubt thrilling crowds of patriotic alpha males and beyond, this Pushing-Tin to-the-limits exercise has worn out its welcome. It’s anachronistic, given the fossil fuel expenditure. It’s costly (government is spending another $30 million to keep the antiquated aircraft in the air). And with its startling bursts of supersonics, it’s insensitive to refugees from war-town countries and even its own traumatized comrades returned from battle. And all this for a few minutes of zoom…zoom…zoom entertainment.