Beaufort air show back after budget shutdown

After a four-year hiatus because of military budget cuts, the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort’s air show is set for this weekend. Shaw Air Force Base will renew its air show next year.

Along with performances by the Navy’s famous Blue Angels and a peek at the new Marine Corps’ F-35 fighter at Beaufort this weekend, there will be the Viper Demonstration Team from Shaw – a single jet, pilot and four maintainers demonstrating the capabilities of an F-16.

Budgets cuts “closed all those things down,” said Steven Creech, a former Sumter mayor who represents the “Gamecock City” on the S.C. Military Base Task Force, which will meet Friday in Beaufort for a preview of the Saturday and Sunday shows. “But I knew when I saw the flyover at the Super Bowl that these things were coming back.”

With the end of the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is drastically cutting personnel and budgets. But no one knows for sure how deep those cuts will be until Congress decides whether to let $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts – half to the military, half to domestic spending – kick in.

The automatic budget cuts resulted from the 2011 debt ceiling fight. If enacted, the cuts would furlough federal workers, limit access to national parks and cut social programs in addition to slashing the military.

So the threat of those cuts grounded the Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds, as well any flyovers for events like Gamecock football games or the annual Salute from Shore event on the Fourth of July along the Grand Strand. But those flights were renewed last year as Navy, Marine and Air Force officials realized that the impact of getting the public, particularly young people, contemplating national service was invaluable.

“They are wonderful recruiting tool for the military,” Creech added. “People decide they like that lifestyle and want to be apart of it.”

Capt. Craig Baker, a veteran fighter pilot from the 20th Fighter Wing’s 79th Fighter Squadron based at Shaw that flies the Viper, said he is excited to be performing again.

“It’s a good way to tell the pilots’ and maintainers’ story and inspire the next generation of the Air Force,” said Baker, 32 and a native of Gray’s Creek, N.C.

In addition to the Blue Angels, the air show also will include a performance by “American Idol” winner and Beaufort native Candice Glover, vehicle static displays and a Marine Air Ground Task Force presentation that demonstrates the war fighting capabilities and doctrine of the Marine Corps.

This story was originally published April 9, 2015 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Beaufort air show back after budget shutdown."