Flyover/flyby Q&A

[Guest Dirt Beater]

Kind of a random question, but when the missing man formation flies overhead and the guy pulls up and away, how high does he typically go before proceeding elsewhere?

[Toro]

Only a few thousand feet, depending on how much altitude ATC has cleared out for him. He'll stay within visual limits of the rest of the formation, then rejoin as the three-ship is out of view of the audience.

[Guest bg130fe]

Hate to make my first post on a negative note but...I was wondering if anyone knows what the was the deal with the jacked-up fly by following the national anthem prior to the Talladega race on Sunday? These guys (TY) were in excess of 20 seconds off on their TOT at completion of the anthem. I realize that this may have been the fault of the race directors but it was weak none the less...and the crowd did notice, again I am aware of the mechanics involved in such an event and it can be a challange. On a positive note the F-18's (Oceania) on Saturday were spot on..almost on cue...throttles to MIL on the overhead...raging boner for all! On a further pos...I've been a "guest" on the site for years and hope for nothing but the best for the site and the service that it provides to all the "crew dogs" that visit.

"COMPLETE" Engineer

[Toro]

Never fault a sh!tty flyby without talking to the pilots. Having done many flybys, I can tell you that the dudes on the ground working as ground coordination (if they're not pilots) tend to have minimal understanding of our capacity to push it up and pull it back. On average, most IP to TOT distances are 20-ish miles. That means that once I've pushed from my hold, it's going to take me about 3 minutes to get there. We're given a 'soft' TOT which we depart the IP to make. Any sort of TOT change after the push completely screws with the timing. Since the National Anthem is only 60-90 seconds, we have minmal 'push it up' or 'pull it back capacity'. Sometimes, ground dudes will 'allow' the National Anthem to start early or late and inform the pilots with the hope that they can work magic.

[Guest scottaxelson]

Originally posted by Toro:

Never fault a sh!tty flyby without talking to the pilots.

Or in other aircraft such as the buff, the navs. Toro is spot on. Ive done my share of flybys with some being absolutly perfect and some being less than that. Sometimes all we are given is coordinates to fly over at X time. Sometimes we have a guy at the show directing us with headings and times. Flybys are a huge planning headache and for first timers they usually dont know what to give to the aircraft doing the flyby. Theyll say, just fly over when were singing the natl anthem. Well great, when is that? Ummm, around 3:30....around?? Yeah your setting us to look like retards there...But believe it or not, thats the coordination you get sometimes.

But when done properly, if its a fighter, bomber, helis, or cargo...fly overs are pretty bad ass when timing is shacked.

[LJ Driver]

I was at Talladega on Sunday, and the F-15's were quite off time. It looked good when they flew by though... The anthem was not sung by anyone (just instrumental), which I thought was odd, and I could tell there was little in terms of a timeline that the MC was sticking to.

[Guest cguarino]

Chances are it was not the pilots fault. I've done flybys in both Vipers and Hawgs but my real understanding of how this gets screwed up comes from doing the coordination on the ground multiple times. I'm a big NASCAR fan and go to a number of races. So I end up being the guy on the ground packing the PRC 117 around the track. Here is what you have to deal with. 1. The offical time is the time on the NASCAR guy's watch not the world standard GPS time. 2. They tell you the preacher is going to talk for 30 seconds and he takes 15 or 60 seconds. 3. The singer swears that it takes her 1 min and 32 seconds to sing the anthem but then she does it in 1+18 or worse yet they speed up and slow down. So you can't figure out what corrections to make. All of these things make this an almost impossible task. Any fighter/Bomber pilot in the US Air Force can make a TOT within a couple of seconds. All he has to do is fly the speed the jet tells him to. It is the moving TOT based on that NASCAR guy's watch that causes the problem. However, sometimes it works out perfectly. The trick to that is to get close to the singer and signal her to either slow down or speed up based on posit calls from the flight lead. Watch the singer next time. Now you know why they take those long pauses you sometime see. That all said I've been involved in some where the flight lead just plain dorked it up also. Maybe me, maybe someone else. I'm not saying. And by the way, late or early the crowd still loves it. I was on the start finish line at Bristol in March of 2003 (5 days after OIF kicked off) when a couple of squadron mates executed a perfectly timed flyby over 165,000 Americans all chanting U-S-A. It was absolutley beautiful. If you ever need a little reassurance that there are American people supporting you, go to a NASCAR race. It will erase any doubts.

[B-O-double-Z]

TBear,

I agreed with most of your post until I got to this part.

Originally posted by TBear:

The trick to that is to get close to the singer and signal her to either slow down or speed up based on posit calls from the flight lead. .

YGBSM. That is the worst technique I've ever heard. I'm sure you were a real hit on the ground, trying to tell the singer how to sing the national anthem.

If you need to hit the end of the National Anthem, all you can really do is compel the singer to practice a few times, then give you the average time for the song and time your run-in accordingly. If you are trying to fvck with the singer during the performance, you are way too far down in the weeds.

If you hold perpendiclar to your planned run-in, at the proper distance for the length of the song and your planned speed (example 1+30 song, 240 knots, equals six miles), and know approximately when the song is going to start, you can be ready to turn inbound when it starts, and make minor speed adjustments on final to hit your TOT.

From small town parades, to squadron mates burials, to college and NFL football games (sorry, I can't stand NASCAR), I've never screwed one up.

[SelfLase]

While we are on the topic of flyovers.... check this out! I believe this was from the White Sox 2006 home opener

Pretty low, huh!

[Toro]

Here's my most recent bad timing story: 4-ship of F-15Es holding just south of MacDill planning to hit a hard TOT. About 5 seconds inside our inbound turn we were supposed to get a "begin national anthem" call which would help us QC our timing. We hit the IP inbound, close it up to fingertip and descend to 1000'. No call. About 15 seconds later we get the "begin national anthem call"...and we now have less than 90 seconds to somehow lose 15 seconds. Flight lead directs "Hold on" and starts doing S-turns at 1000' over Tampa with a 4-ship in fingertip. He rolled out with the timing showing 15 seconds late relative to the original TOT and we pressed inbound. Shacked the timing, no thanks to the dudes on the ground.

[Guest ELan]

I'm with Bozz. Only been a part of two flybys and I've never heard of the ground controller messing with the singer. Both times the ground guy had already established radio contact with us, gave us a 30 sec advisory to hit the run-in (which had a soft TOT), then keyed the mic so we could hear the anthem the entire run-in. Much easier for the pilot to adjust his/her speed then have the singer speed up and slow down. That f-ing cracks me up.

Like a lot of people have stated. The ground coordination is key. Hard TOT's rarely work.

[MD]

For a baseball game flyover, I got the fun of being in the ground with the 113. Just for giggles, I gave the announcer a handwritten note of BS to read just in case things didn't go as planned. As can be guessed, the singer went faster than anticipated and briefed to expect as my Hogs pressed inbound. On cue, the announcer began to read the "Ladies and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to the north.........blah blah blah", which bought the little time needed to close the gap. Worked.

[Flare]

Just saw the T-bird flyby...weather at OVC006....did they look a little low to anyone else? :D

[Bishop]

Im glad I had Tivo, had to do a double... quadruple take

Aviator, Toro (possinbly others) could tell you bout the pain in the @$$ it is on the timing when doing a flyover I recall a discussion on it in the past maybe a search for flyovers will turn something up.

[ 04. February 2007, 17:41: Message edited by: Bishop ]

[Guest Rainman A-10]

I am never the first person to cheer for the T-Clones but I must admit, they did a shit hot job.

Fly bys are a real pain in the balls when conditions are perfect. Those guys got it done at night, in shitty weather and shacked the timing. Very nicely done.

[drewpey]

http://3cb.blessed.net/tbirdsatbowl.wmv

ninja'd from another forum

[BlackKnight]

For those wondering how it's done- start with exact coordinates of the center of the stadium (with embedded GPS now it's great because the coordinates don't drift). Then, you need the EXACT time that it takes the singer to perform the anthem. They always practice, so it's not hard to get a good time- we then find out from a PA rep or someone how long it took the singer to finish. The clocks they use at the stadium are usually spot on to the universal time code, so we can use the time from our nav system. You then plug the time at the end of the song into a time-on-target (TOT) of the waypoint for the stadium, and it will display how much before/after you are to that time, plus the required indicated or ground speed to meet the TOT. Personally, I fly outbound until I see 240 knots required, then turn inbound. That usually gives me a 275 knot +/- a few knots to shack the timing. That speed is a good one for your wingman, and the crowd (at least in the A-10). They hold the singer's start until the exact second so he finishes when you expect. Plus, we have a guy on the ground relaying to us if they started early/late. With all the new technology it's pretty easy to hit it right on, as the Tbirds did. They did do a great job- I counted only a second (if that) late. It's acceptable (not desired) to be 5-10" early, but being later than a second or two sucks (cricket, cricket, zoom).

Barney

[Guest regularjoe]

First time post, long time reader.

I usually just observe and learn from what is posted on the forum but have a general question on this topic.

In one of the passes the 117 closest to the tanker seems to be having a lot of wing buffeting from what I would assume is the wake turbulence from the leading edge/wingtip of the 135. Is that the reason for all the concern here? Otherwise I don't understand the issue other than maybe they were pretty close together and close to the ground at the same time so no room for error.

[Toasty]

Looks like the inside 117 is about 10-20 feet from sucking on wake vortex, so I'd imagine that would be a concern.

[B-O-double-Z]

The Air Force doesn't have much of a sense of humor these days when it comes to impromptu fly-bys.

The approval process has become very rigorous. There's no way this is an approved aerial demonstration. Most official fly-bys these days are similar formation, limited to one pass, and usually at 1000' agl. The only exception is if you are part of a demo team--and then, every aspect of your performance is scripted, practiced methodically, and approved by leadership.

I'd say these guys are screwed. It has nothing to do with whether or not what they were doing is dangerous. It has to do with a lack of flight discipline.

[Scooter14]

The Air Force doesn't have much of a sense of humor these days when it comes to impromptu fly-bys.

The approval process has become very rigorous. There's no way this is an approved aerial demonstration. Most official fly-bys these days are similar formation, limited to one pass, and usually at 1000' agl. The only exception is if you are part of a demo team--and then, every aspect of your performance is scripted, practiced methodically, and approved by leadership.

I'd say these guys are screwed. It has nothing to do with whether or not what they were doing is dangerous. It has to do with a lack of flight discipline.

We had a bunch of KC-135/A-10, F-15 and F-16 formations for AF week. Dissimilar requires SAF/PA approval, but it is not impossible.

That being said, the coordination takes a few weeks, and this looked more impromptu than a planned flyby to me, but I've been wrong before. Hopefully it was planned, briefed and approved. Looked nice.

[Guest MikeD]

This type of event should be endorsed by everyone who loves aviation. Think about the history of such an event. The now oldest aircraft in the inventory flying along side of the most mysterious, who could ask for more at an air show. Let us not forget that it is in fact the people viewing that air show to begin with, that makes those planes fly. Without tax payer dollars most of us on this site wouldn't have a job. I would definitely argue that our U.S. demo teams risk much more than those pilot's on that day.

Mike D out have a good day everyone!!

[ClearedHot]

Military Jet Flyovers Thrilling But Very Expensive

'08 Super Bowl flyby cost $36K for 4-second event

By Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. — A flyby at a sports event can inspire a crowd like nothing else. But is it the best use of military time and money?

The noise inside University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale grew deafening as Jordin Sparks finished the national anthem before the start of this year's Super Bowl.

It was time for that newly minted American sports tradition that puts an exclamation point on the pregame ceremonies: a military flyover.

Only this time, no one at the game noticed. The stadium's roof was closed. No one could see the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels overhead. And it was so loud inside that no one could even hear the jets. But the almost 100 million watching on TV did get to see them for about four seconds.

A spokesman estimated the cost of sending the six F/A-18A Hornets from their training home in El Centro, Calif., to Arizona and back at $36,000.

Flybys fairly easy to get

Flyovers, once unexpected moments at major sporting events, are now almost the norm, expected parts of pregame festivities. But an Orlando Sentinel investigation has found that you don't have to reach a very high bar to get one.

At a time when the United States is fighting a war, flybys provide feel-good moments for fans, for sports leagues and even for athletes themselves — a spectacle that gives any sporting event added prestige and excitement. But are flyovers worth it, or are they a high-priced folly?

"For the publicity aspect of it, I'd say it's definitely well worth it when you consider the cost to advertise during the Super Bowl," Blue Angels press officer Capt. Tyson Dunkelberger said.

"The more people see our blue jets and recognize the Navy, the better it is for us."

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will perform a similar fly-by today before the Daytona 500.

An Air Force spokeswoman said eight F-16 Fighting Falcon jets will fly from Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas to Daytona Beach and back at a cost of $80,000. For the flyover itself, six jets will be in the air for 40 minutes, at an approximate fuel cost of $6,000.

"We have this mission to bring the story of the Air Force to people who may not have an Air Force base near them," Thunderbirds press officer Capt. Elizabeth Kreft said.

"We're going to reach an untold number of homes with the Air Force message, and that's why we were given permission to do it."

Military officials say the fly-bys boost recruiting efforts and give Americans an opportunity to see their aircraft in action.

Officials also insist that flyovers don't cost taxpayers any additional money, because each flyover counts as a training flight and comes out of already existing training budgets and schedules.

"Baloney," said Winslow Wheeler, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. "It's atrocious training. They're flying from Point A to Point B. They're doing a couple of sort of low-altitude passes over the events and they go home. That's what pilots call 'converting gas to noise.' "

The Orlando Sentinel investigation shows the Air Force, the Army, the Marine Corps and the Navy receive about 850 requests for flyovers or parachute jumps at sporting events each year, and the vast majority of those requests are deemed eligible for aerial support — even if they're opening ceremonies for local Little League games or international tennis matches or minor-league baseball games.

Once an event is deemed eligible, usually it's up to individual teams or leagues to find available squadrons to perform the flyby. Department of Defense Form 2535, the three-page application that must be filled out for every flyby request, makes no mention of sporting events.

Its instructions state that "requests for flyovers will be considered only for aviation-oriented events . . . or for patriotic observances (one day only) held in conjunction with Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, POW/MIA Recognition Day or Veterans Day."

[Steve Davies]

I think that it is a commendable tradition.

Provided that it does not interfere with operations or operational capability, then military fly overs are worth their weight in gold as far as publicity is concerned. The Super Bowl flyover is a great example: $64,000 for 4 seconds air time is a steal when you consider other advertisers were paying c.$86,000 per second.

Having a military that retains the focus of the public eye and has a good relationship with the Average Joe is a valuable thing.

[afnav]

They almost always plan flyovers with a normal training sortie, which is what we did when I was a scheduler. This is not a big waste of money like some would lead you to believe.