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I'm sorry, how many fly-bys have you done? Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit a moving TOT to the second? Especially when the singer likes to get all artsy and do their own rendition of the Anthem, and completely fvck your overhead?
And I only did it at a whooping 130kts.
He has done plenty of fly-by's. I have seen plenty of moving TOT's hit within a second. And we practiced them about half a dozen times a week...if not more.
Fighters are not the only ones who need to be on time while still being flexible.
As for whether they were late or not...I don't know...and really don't care.
Just an observation, which might be incorrect: it appeared the music that she sang the anthem to was recorded.
Just an observation, which might be incorrect: it appeared the music that she sang the anthem to was recorded. Therefore, it would have been a "known" length of time.
That said, I've been way off on flyovers, thanks to the folks that started the "known" music at the most inopportune part of my holding pattern.
I was on the AIRLANT staff in about 1998 or 99 when we had the "worlds loudest flyby" at the baseball all star game at Fenway. The guy on on the ground was a LCDR named "Joe" (can't remember his last name) and he had us howling with laughter when he relayed the story the following monday.
The flight was a diamond of F-14s and everything was going as scheduled. There was supposed to be some presentation, then a commercial break followed by the anthem. At the end of whatever the presentation was, the singer steps up to the mike and starts singing, cutting out the commercial break. Once he realized it, Joe tells the Flight Lead "turn it in now, she started singing!" Flight lead asked "what's the timing?" Joe says "I don't know!!!" Lead again asks for the timing and at some point the FAA guy tells him "you're cleared any altitude and airspeed to make it happen." Thinking on his feet, Joe joins the singer in singing the National Anthem over the radio. I can only imagine what that sounded like to the Tomcat drivers. He told us you could see the flight crank it inbound and here comes the smoke and the wings sweep back in the turn. They ended up hitting the mark on time, but when the flight passed over the stadium, 2, 3 and 4 were all in blower to keep up with the lead.
After the game was over, Joe is down on the street and talks with the Boston cops about the flyby. One cop describing just how loud it was says: (imagine Boston accent) "See that horse over there? He jumped straight up in the air and starts S---ing and p---ing and took off running. We had to chase him for three blocks before we caught him."
Please excuse my paraphrasing, but it's as close as I can remember. I can still see Joe's facial expressions as he described it to us.![]()
Q: are the pilots listening to the broadcast while positioning or is it just timimg thing?
Last one we did went something like this:
15 minutes prior to planned start of the anthem on the radio "things are on time, stand by words to follow"
10 minutes prior to planned start "uh, they're starting the alma mater, which is prior to the anthem, they may be starting early, stand by"
8 minutes prior to push "sh1t! PUSH NOW!!!!"
Updates passed every line of the anthem
20 seconds prior to TOT, two Hornets appear on the horizon with black smoke pouring out of them.
480KT flyby, hit to the second. Word from my guys was they were in and out of blower trying to catch up, and about 15 seconds to go they were back on timeline.
I hate to be the one to say it, but they were 3-5 seconds late. Nice though.