The Air Force will ground the Thunderbirds jet demonstration team and cease air support to public events April 1 unless a federal budget deal puts the show season back on track, the service announced Friday.

The Thunderbirds are scheduled to appear at the Vectren Dayton Air Show on June 22-23, but the impending cancellation will not stop the show, said Terry Grevious, the executive director of the event.

He said late Friday he’s hopeful the team will be allowed to appear at Dayton International Airport since pilots will continue to fly this month to maintain their skills in the cockpit.

“The show is going to go on regardless,” he said. “We’ve had a number of years where we haven’t had a jet team.”

For the past decade, about every four years neither the Thunderbirds nor the Blue Angels have appeared on the tarmac in Dayton, he said.

Several air shows across the country, including in Indianapolis, had canceled air shows because of the uncertainty of whether the Thunderbirds and the Navy’s Blue Angels will fly this season.

The Air Force said the flying hours set aside for the Thunderbirds and other demonstration acts, such as the F-22 Raptor, would instead be used to keep pilots flying to meet readiness needs. The no-show order would also apply to Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard aircraft and mean no flyovers at funerals, military graduations, heritage flights, sporting and other events, the service said. Local display of aircraft, known as static displays, could continue.

The Air Force projects flying hours will be reduced by nearly a fifth, or a loss of 203,000 flying hours this year, and two thirds of the active-duty Air Force combat units would see a reduction in training at home stations because of budget cuts.

Even with the potential loss of the Thunderbirds on the horizon, the Dayton Air Show touted Friday that a MiG-17F and a F-86 Sabre jet will make first appearances in the skies of Dayton during the show, he said.

Both are 1950s-era vintage fighter jets. Randy Ball of Tyler, Texas, will fly the MiG, while Paul R. Wood, founder of the Warbird Heritage Foundation in Waukegan, Ill., will pilot the F-86.

The air show also announced Friday wing walker Jane Wicker has joined the line-up. The Miami Valley event also plans a “Great Wall of Fire” pyrotechnic display.