HIGH-FLYING SALUTE
Members of the United States navy flight demonstration squadron Blue Angels fly over downtown Detroit Tuesday as part of a multi-city tour to show appreciation for front-line workers during the COVID 19 pandemic.
Canada’s Snowbirds may have bypassed Windsor on their eastto-west cross-canada COVID-19 worker appreciation tour, but Tuesday saw a flyover of Detroit by one of their American equivalents, the Blue Angels, that saw hundreds flock to the Windsor riverfront.
The six U.S. navy F-18 Hornets started from their home base in Pensacola, Fla., on Tuesday morning and first flew west to east over downtown Detroit shortly after 11:30 a.m., flew a circuitous pattern over the city and its eastern suburbs and then flew back over downtown just before noon before landing at Detroit Metro Airport.
The published flight plan indicated the group would fly directly over the Detroit River, but the planes took a flight path further to the north instead.
After the Detroit appearance the squad was to travel to Chicago and Indianapolis for similar flyovers before returning to their home base in Florida.
The Blue Angels flight-performance squadron was formed in 1946, only the second flight-performance squadron existing under the same name after the Patrouille de France was formed in 1931.
In 2011, the Blue Angels received $37 million from the Department of Defence budget.
The Blue Angels and their U.S. air force counterparts, the Thunderbirds, have been travelling across the U.S. this spring doing flyovers of major cities to recognize the efforts of those fighting the COVID-19 pandemic on the front lines.
Both squadrons usually have a packed schedule of air shows across North America throughout the summer but all performances have been cancelled due to coronavirus social-distancing concerns. —Postmedia News