Thanks for shattering my last nerve.

59 replies on “I HATE YOU, BLUE ANGELS”

  2. Chez Vel-DuRay is in the flight path of the Blue Angels. I don’t like the Blue Angels. I think they’re corny, and they drive my dogs nuts. Seriously nuts. Especially the Pomerainian.

    However, there are those who love them, and part of living in a city is accepting that not everything that happens will be to your liking, and that it’s not the end of the world.

    Don’t be like those people who complain about the Capitol Hill Block Party.

  3. Help me understand the hate. How is this different from the block party or any other annoyance? Yeah, they’re loud, but it doesn’t go on all day, and they’re kinda cool to look at.

  7. As they startle the bejeezus out of me screaming over downtown and Elliott Bay, it’s time for my annual bashing. Allowing these things to fly over the densest parts of this City year after year is terrible judgment. It’s a high-speed, airborne Alaska Way viaduct, waiting for catastrophe to happen. It doesn’t matter that they are phenomenally impressive pilots. It doesn’t depend on whether you care about the noise, the stress on animals and other living things, the traffic tie-ups, or the grandiose consumption of fuel and money by the military. They’re simply not safe. Google “Blue Angels safety.” One of these years, something awful will happen.

  9. I’m a liberal. Anti-war and all that. I also fancy myself pro-environment. However, the hypocrisy of bitching every year about the angels, while supporting other loud/disruptive events (Hello Block Party!) drives me crazy. When you choose to live with a lot of people (i.e. not in the woods), then you should cheerfully put up with other people’s enthusiasms and events, within reason. Are you against road closures for the Gay Pride parade? How do you feel about July 4th fireworks? Husky games? What about the Freemont parade and all the naked bike riders? How about slut-walk? Hempfest? Those all annoy the shit out of one constituency or another, for various reasons (fags! pollution! noise! traffic! breasts! drugs!). What it boils down to is that most people find events that don’t appeal to them to be somehow without merit, annoying, and think they should be stopped. Events they like on the other hand, are all in good fun, and should be cheerfully tolerated by all. I think we should all put up with each other’s events and quit bitching. Yes to Block Party. Yes to football games. Yes to Gay Pride. Yes to Blue Angles. It is a big city with something for everyone. So shut up, enjoy what you can, and tolerate the rest.

  12. I think this may be the year that the complainers about the complainers finally out number the complainers themselves. It’s already 6-4!

  15. Bwhahaha! I was waiting for this post. We even made fun of it on le Facebook. I hope the comments go to past 200 this year. Derp Derp I hate the blue angels or Derp Derp AMERICA!!!!

    I best get my popcorn ready…. this is gonna be good!

  16. @9 my problem isn’t the noise, it’s the cost difference between having hundreds of millions of dollars of military equipment burn thousands of pounds of jet fuel versus putting up some chain link fences in Pike / Pine to keep the hipsters corralled for a weekend. Think about all of the taxes you paid last year. Then watch one jet fly maybe 500 yards. You probably didn’t even pay enough to cover that.

  17. A few years ago, I happened to be eating lunch at the Space Needle restaurant (1st & only time) when the Blue Angels were practicing. They are much more fun to watch from such a perch, and my USAF Capt. nephew was very excited about the whole deal. It was a show.

    All other times, the pompous fly boys just seemed to randomly rattle the glassware in the cupboard and remind me of my elementary school days in the SeaTac flight path.

  21. Yes, @9, there are annoyances that come with living in a big city. (Even a medium-sized, self-absorbed city like Seattle.) But if I don’t like Block Party, I DON’T GO. If I don’t want to watch nekkid peeps on bikes, I DON’T GO. If I don’t like Wagner’s Ring Cycle (another element of our civic religious) I DON’T GO. But the noise and related fallout from the effing Blue Angels is unavoidable. And reckless (wreckless as well, so far).

  22. You’d think they’d be able to use air space not DIRECTLY ABOVE A CITY to do their stupid loud stunts, but you’d be mistaken. You’d also think they’d be able to SCHEDULE their flight practice around the other flights headed in or out of an area, especially if they are going to be using airport space to do so. It’s nothing but an entitlement show.

  23. This was the first year that the littlest Rotten could enjoy the Angels. Made my day to see him do his hand signal for “up in the sky” every time one passed overhead.

    He’s a masculine boy, that one.

  25. @18 You lived in a war zone? I did not know that, do tell…

    I was going to be all “WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF MY POOR CATS?!!!”, but they’ve been real shits lately, so I’m fine with them getting a little flying death machine terror. Perhaps, with this common enemy, they will feel less inclined to fight with each other.

  27. Oh hush. They come to my small town on a fairly regular (and miraculous) basis. They come early and practice for two days. Right over my normally dead quiet house. Freaks the dog out.

    At least in Seattle, you probably have some place cool to go to avoid the noise. Not where I am…

  28. I used to have to listen to those C-141 and C-17 cargo planes day after day, night after night in Tacoma…. I can deal with a couple of days of the Blue Angels.
    Though the month-long fireworks parties here in Utah did about drive me insane.

  31. You might be interested to know that Fnarf once had a 1930 postcard from Josef von Sternberg on his refrigerator door.

  32. Wow. Its the same people who complained last year. I know this because I pointed out the same thing. Last year.

    See you next year!

  33. Blue angels have been doing this shtick since Viet Nam days, and the technology, though terrifying and destructive, didn’t get the job done there. Bring on the predator drones.

  34. @25, i meant to say i imagine what it’s like to live in a war zone. those jet fighters are built to drop bombs, right? and please be nice to the kitties. please.

  35. @21 The angels do have a wide footprint, but Pride, Husky Games, etc, all have impacts far beyond those who choose to go. Neighbors who live in the area certainly have no choice, and traffic and noise certainly reach far beyond those who have proactively chosen to participate.

    I don’t watch the Angels myself, but a lot of people really enjoy them, and I’m willing to put up with a loud noise a few times a day so that they can have their fun. People need to lighten up, and quit being such damn whiners!

  36. @34 Oh, okay. And I’m sure the cats will be fine. When they get into messing around with each other (which is always), they are pretty oblivious to external stimuli.

  39. “The block party is far less likely to crash into your house at 600MPH”

    Good point, 24. After all, that’s happened so many times here. When I think of all the lovely homes and dear, intelligent friends lost to the Blue Angels every year, I could just weep.

  40. @3- It’s different from the Block Party in that you can’t avoid it just by avoiding one neighborhood. You have to leave the entire Lake Washington area.

  42. @10 the last time i checked, we were still technically allowed to complain about things in this country & were not required to leave or be jailed. not big on free speech are you?

  43. americans love their military & they love using it and/or seeing it in action, hence the blue angels. i don’t think this is a good thing, but i believe it is true.

  44. Not being able to get away from the noise sucks. Especially for animals, people prone to migraines from the noise, and people with PTSD (not to mention all the rest of us who just FUCKING HATE THE FUCKING NOISE). But if you think those are the only reasons people hate them, you’re wrong.

    A BA fighter jet burns 1,200 gallons of fuel per hour of flight. The current price of jet fuel hovers around $4.67 a gallon (it was as high at $7 in 2008). In 3,000 hours of training, the Commanding Officer uses 3,600,000 gallons of jet fuel (3,000 hours X 1,200 gallons/hr). At $4.67/gallon, that’s $16,812,000 in fuel alone just to train one guy.

    As for the other 14 pilots: 14 x 1,350 = 18,900 training hours. At 1,200 gallons/hour, that’s 22,680,000 gallons. At $4.67/gallon, that’s $105,915,600 in fuel cost for training the 14 other pilots.

    TOTAL FUEL COST FOR TRAINING ALONE: $122,727,600.00

    The cost of fuel alone for the BAS in the Seattle Air & Water Show is $354,744. The Blue Angels do 70 shows a year. Assuming they rehearse similarly for each one, that’s an annual fuel cost of $24,832,080.

    And this is only fuel cost. We’re not even talking salaries, admin costs, hotels and meals, all the expenses any company or organization would incur.

    Especially considering our recent debt crisis and cuts to much needed programs, why are we wasting upwards of 200 million dollars on this fucking bullshit every year?

  45. Fuck the women, fuck the children, crush a beer, fly the stars and bars and god bless ‘Merica!!!!! Seafair is what Seattle is all about and for those of you who bitch should get you 206 card revoked or move back to whatever shit burg you came from. I love the hill but this happens every year and just shows how gay the hill really is.

  48. @9 Thank you that was put wonderfully. People forget that freedom is often messy and inconvenient. Part of living in a free society is putting up with the behaviour of other free individuals.

    To everyone who thinks the Blue Angels are a waste of money: The US needs an air force even if just for self defence on its’ own soil. Those pilots have to train constantly to build and maintain their skills. With or without the Blue Angels the pilots would still be burning that amount of fuel. Therefor any benefits your country gets from such a program (and there are definitely benefits) are basically free.

    To anyone concerned about safety: you are infinitely more like to die just walking across the street.

    To anyone complaining about the noise: suck it up or spend $0.50 on a pair of ear plugs.

    To anyone even joking about killing these pilots or wishing they’d die: FUCK YOU! You do realize that your saying you want to see members of your nations military killed right? You do realize how moronic that makes you seem? You do realize that it plays into every neagtive stereotype people have about the anti-war movement right?

  49. I live in Rainier Valley. I had to call the cops on a knife fight in the street on Tuesday (oh, Rainier Valley, I do love you) and the cop and I had to stop our conversation for several minutes waiting for one of the planes to move along. When I lived on Cap Hill, I was certainly able to talk over the noise of the block party.
    But whatever. I don’t like ’em and so I leave town and spend some tourist bucks in other places. This year, it’s Canada–which is having a big noisy polluting fireworks show and I love it. There’s no accounting for taste.

  50. Hmm, wasn’t it just few weeks ago that someone was complaining about noise from the Capitol Hill Block Party (and at 2 a.m., not midday), and Slog commenters unanimously said, “Get over it, you live in a big city, that’s part of the deal! You don’t like it, move to Lynnwood!”

    But then, that was noise you approved of, right?

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