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The U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Team, The Thunderbirds, has been an Air Force active duty fighter squadron officially known as the 3600 Air Demonstration Team. They were based at Luke AFB outside of Phoenix, AZ and originally activated on June 1st, 1953. The team is now located at Nellis AFB, outside of Las Vegas, NV. The squadron was founded on May 25th, 1953, just six years after the Air Force was founded.

The Thunderbirds have always flown jet aircraft from the very beginning. The Thunderbirds have so far flown seven aircraft over the course of almost seven decades. Back on May 9th, 1964, on their first season with the F-105, one of them crashed on landed prior to the next scheduled airshow in California, requiring the them to permanently ground the F-105s from the team after only six airshows.

In April 2020 the U.S. Navy Blue Angles and the Thunderbirds performed together for the first time ever. Though the cases of seeing both the U.S. Navy Blue Angles and the Thunderbirds is very rare, the Pentagon has to give an exception, because there is a rule stating that both air demonstration teams cannot be in a airshow closer than 50 miles to the other team's airshow. In April and May of 2020 both teams performed across the U.S. together and in August of 2021 they performed in Detroit, MI. For the past few years the teams have practiced together in California over the winter.

Here is a list of main crashes that the Thunderbirds had in order: as mentioned earlier the first Thunderbird crash was with the F-105, with one of them crashing on landing prior to the next scheduled airshow in California requiring them to retire the F-105s after only six airshows. The next crash was in 1982, the “Diamond Crash” with the T-38. Unfortunately though everybody was killed. But then they transferred to the F-16 and in 2003 one of them caught on fire at the 2003 Mountain Home AFB airshow, but the pilot safely ejected and nobody was killed or injured.

Here is a list of aircraft that the Thunderbirds have flown to date:

1. North American F-84G Thunderjet (with T-33 Shooting Star as VIP/Press/Announcer aircraft)
2. North American F-84F Thundershreak
3. North American F-100 Super Sabre
4. Republic F-105 Thunderchief
5. North American F-100 Super Sabre
6. McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom
7. Northrop T-38 Talon
8. General Dramatics F-16 Falcon