That's precisely the sort of hypocrisy I was referring to.
The idea that drawing phalluses with contrails isn't just as, or more, conducive to developing useful piloting skill as many of the other tasks that consume the bulk of any pilot's flight hours is just more hypocrisy. Had they just been loitering, flying in a straight line, or just let the craft fly itself while arguing about a basketball game, instead of doing something that was visible and offensive to the easily offended, it would likely have been perfectly acceptable. The complaints and reprimands don't seem to stem from anyone being put in danger, or even from the air crew being tardy or off-mission, simply that people were offended by the particular pattern flown.
As a US taxpayer (however reluctant) I'm considerably more offended by the waste of time and resources spent fussing over this and the how uptight the Navy is than the five thousand dollars it cost to fly an F-18 long enough to draw a in the sky.
I can assure you with 100% confidence that it's not just $5,000 to put an aircraft in the air for 5 minutes. There's the money spent on training the maintainers to have the knowledge to service that aircraft into a flyable condition. There's the money spent on training the aircrew to get that aircraft into the air. There's the parts, the fuel (which is not $5000 for 5 minutes), bills for the facilities, the $68.2 million just to build that one aircraft. It's meant to be flown to jam and destroy radar sites, and train on how to do that, not joyride around like it's your personal Cessna. So your argument is false.
Furthermore, even if the public wasn't involved I can assure you they'd still be in deep trouble with the commanding officer of the squadron. Because he's responsible for all 8 aircraft under his command, each $68.2 million, and the people who put them into the air. Things like this don't go unnoticed. Any skipper worth the Command badge he wears on his shirt would be waiting on the flightline to piledrive those pilots into the concrete, public involvement or not. Because if
anything happens that's not within regulations and the training plan, like an accident, he gets brought before a board to review what happened. And he, and everyone else under his command, better have been doing their duty and nothing else every second under review or that's their a**. That plane sucks a bird down the intake and goes down, or has an engine flameout and calls in an inflight emergency, or something else, and it comes out in the mishap investigation that the pilot was in the middle of using a $68.2 million piece of hardware for a prank, what would you think would happen to everyone in the chain of command from the skipper down to the pilot? I assure you it's not a tea party. So regardless of public involvement or not, a skipper should, and will, put a stop to that the second wheels are on deck. Command responsibility.
