Bill Crawford’s Flightlab Blog

I’ve never been to an airshow outside the United States, so I can only imagine what it might be like elsewhere on the planet. In the U.S., at least, major airshows tend to involve patriotic themes. This is especially the case at airbases or when there’s otherwise a strong military presence. But even when the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels aren’t around, the Flag usually gets waved pretty hard.

Which happens in both literal and symbolic terms. I can’t remember an airshow that didn’t begin with skydivers descending with an American Flag. Taking symbolism to the limit, airshow performer Julie Clark calls her “Mopar T-34” the Free Spirit. It makes red, white, and blue smoke; the aircraft, in effect, becoming the Flag. The imagery is potent. Aerobatic flight represents physical freedom of the highest order, and it’s popularly thought to demand physical courage. Stick them together and you have America’s fundamental notion of itself—the land of the free and the home of the brave. Clark’s aircraft is even painted with a nod toward “Air Force One.” Plus, as she flies, Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America” blares dramatically from the sound system. When Clark lands and taxis back in, she waves an American Flag out the canopy. There’s nothing subtle (or new) about the appropriation of the national identity by a performer working the emotions of a crowd. There’s nothing subtle about the national identity it projects, either. Then again, what could be more boring than a subtle airshow?

I’m a child of the political ‘60s, so you have to be cautious around me and not expect to pluck my heartstrings. I think listening to anything sung by Neil Diamond is like eating lard. Having already been told to “love it or leave it,” I’m wary of those whose patriotism is either aggressively simple-minded or just a ploy to get me to agree with a bad idea—or maybe to buy a certain brand of auto parts.

As a result, I sometimes miss out on the fun. The pilot in me loves it when an F-18 pulls so hard you can see water vapor condense over the wings. But then the cautious patriot in me remembers that the aircraft is, in its brutal reality, a killing machine. I can accept the need for such a machine, but I can’t stop worrying about its misuse. I can admire those Americans and others who are fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thank them. But I can’t feel as I might have if the war—in Iraq, at least—had not been such a duplicitous blunder. I feel the troops need my apology more than my thanks. A bad world became worse because we refused to examine our presumptions, and servicemen and women and their families have taken the brunt. We abused their patriotism. Maybe we should re-question the meaning of our own—not to lose love of country but to see things with more critical, less-misty eyes, and minus the soundtrack.

Patriotic enthusiasm comes easier to me, without ambivalence, when I’m watching World War II warbirds, defenders of liberty against outright aggression, pure and simple. The older warbirds at airshows bring to mind Hollywood scenes of fighter pilots in individual combat or bomber crews with the wise guy from the Bronx and the kid from Nebraska battling through the flack and the Messerschmitts. And the World War II machines, now antiques, refer us back to what really were simpler times, when enemies were bordered nation states with aircraft of their own, and we could harness our industrial might to pummel them in a standup fight, toe to toe. We didn’t have to win hearts and minds afterwards, or keep the fanatics apart. We didn’t have to deal house to house with vicious sectarian and tribal resentments many times older than our own country. Victory was absolute. Maybe those were the days. Then again, be careful what you wish for. Not much stays simple anymore.