City of Peoria Press Release
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Air Force Day at Spring Training to Feature Jump Team, Honor Guard
3/19/2007
The United States Air Force comes to
Peoria Sports Complex on March 21 for pre-game ceremonies before the Padres take
on the Brewers. Game time is 1:05 p.m. and pre-game ceremonies are scheduled to
begin at 12:30 p.m.
The Wings of Blue, the Air Force Academy parachute team, will perform their
canopy show, where four parachutists exit the jump aircraft from 4,500 feet
above the ground. They will freefall for about 10 seconds before deploying their
parachutes.
The Luke Air Force Base Honor Guard will present the colors at the game followed
by the National Anthem sung by Master Sgt. Robert Flack. The ceremonial first
pitch will be conducted by Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Spradley, an explosive ordnance
disposal technician at Luke AFB, escorted by the Chief Master Sergeant of the
Air Force Rodney McKinley.
A Special Forces Operations team will also be at the complex showing off Air
Force equipment and answering questions about their roles in the defense of the
nation.
The Air Force event at Peoria Sports Complex is part of Air Force Week, a series
of events that give citizens the opportunity to see and meet active duty, Air
Force Reserve, and Air National Guard Airmen who are engaged in the Global War
on Terror. Many of the Airmen around the globe are the sons and daughters of
Arizona. More than 6,750 men and women from Arizona are in Air Force uniforms
today and making a difference in the global war on terror.
Luke Air Force Base is the largest fighter training base in the world, training
almost all of America’s F-16 pilots, the core of the fighter force. This year,
Luke Airmen will fly more than 35,000 flights, graduate nearly 400 F-16 pilots,
and send 275 maintainers onto the flightlines to fix the aging fleet. A 2002
study conservatively estimated the economic impact of Luke Air Force Base to be
$1.4 billion per year. A second study is being conducted as we speak and
estimates the impact will be closer to $2 billion a year back into local
economies.
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