The Blue Angels’ vapor trails had barely faded from the skies Lincoln air show when Offutt Air Force Base’s 55th Wing announced the return of its own show next year for the first time since 2018.
The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will headline the Defenders of Freedom Air and Space Show on Aug. 24-25, 2024, said Maj. Bryce Neil, Offutt’s air show director.
“It certainly is good news, both for military members and civilians,” Neil said in an interview. “It gives you a lot of pride, and a way to give back to the community.”
The Offutt air show used to be a regular event in Bellevue, but a combination of catastrophe, construction and commitments prevented the 55th Wing from staging them for six of the past seven years.
The 2017 show was canceled because of the Wing’s heavy operational commitments that year. It was held in 2018, but the 2019 show was scrubbed because of flooding and the 2020 show because of the COVID pandemic.
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The 2021 and 2022 shows weren’t held because the airfield was closed for a total reconstruction of its runway.
Lincoln had already announced its 2023 air show when Offutt reopened its runway last September. Neil said the 55th Wing partnered with the Nebraska Air National Guard’s 155th Air Refueling Wing in putting on the event, which organizers said drew more than 300,000 people to the Lincoln Airport over two days.
“Our committee kind of shadowed them,” Neil said. “We combined forces. It worked great.”
Two Offutt-based aircraft, an RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance jet and an E-4B Nightwatch command-and-control plane, were on static display in Lincoln, which last hosted an air show in 2016.
In addition to the Blue Angels, flying acts including the Air Force’s F-16C Viper team, Navy F-35C and EA-18G crews, World War II-era SNJ-4 and P-51 Mustang warbirds, and Lincoln stunt pilot Doug Roth in his single-engine Staudacher.
“The Lincoln committee did a fantastic job,” Neil said. “We’re switching gears already and working on the Offutt air show.”
He said it’s necessary to start lining up vendors and volunteers for next year’s show already. Although the Thunderbirds already have signed on for 2024, other acts must still be lined up and signed to contracts.
“Over the next six to eight months we’ll be announcing more performers,” Neil said.
Visitors next year will see a much different Offutt Air Force Base than when it last hosted an air show in 2018.
The following spring, a bizarre meteorological event caused massive flooding across Nebraska and western Iowa. The Missouri River overwhelmed two of the levees protecting Offutt and flooded about one-third of the base. Part of the runway was under water, and about 1.2 million square feet of office space inundated.
By August 2024, a post-flood reconstruction boom estimated at $1 billion will be in full swing. But Neil said it won’t interfere with the air show, most of which takes place on a part of Offutt that wasn’t touched by the flood.
“It’ll be seamless to the majority of the people who have been to the show before,” he said. “By the time they get here, they’ll have a hard time noticing the construction.”
The business community in Bellevue, which abuts the base, welcomes the return of one of the city’s biggest annual draws.
