Super Bowl Fly-By

[Amish RakeFight]

Just an observation, which might be incorrect: it appeared the music that she sang the anthem to was recorded.

You're correct.

 

[SIG600]

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.

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.

 

[legendskid_44]

hurry up and wait.....then BOOM everything happens at once

 

[CatfishVT9]

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.

 

[bagasticks]

they werent late. . . .singer was early.

 

[SLOTH]

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.

Funniest thing I've read in a while! Thanks for the laugh.

 

[legendskid_44]

I have to agree with SLOTH, that had me laughing for a while.

 

[BeanFighter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsojswVfqKE&feature=PlayList&p=A83F62D79782586E&playnext=1&index=38

 

[AdlerDriver]

More Fly-by fun

Here’s a fairly humorous fly-by story (at least it was after we landed).

It starts with a Thursday afternoon departure from a FL panhandle AFB for a weekend cross-country. We have to leave Thursday because the open house/airshow traffic will be inbound Friday for the weekend festivities. Our only directive from the commander is hit the fly-by TOT Sunday morning 1200L…….. no excuses. He sends us off with 5 F-15Cs just to make sure we’ll have a good chance at a 4-ship by Sunday morning. Other than that, we can do/go where we want and be back Monday afternoon after the airshow traffic has cleared out.

Everyone brings a shotgun and we hit the largest sporting clay range in the country near Houston Friday morning and Randolph AFB’s skeet range Saturday after the standard Auger Inn Friday night activities. We depart each location at a gentlemanly 1500L, allowing us to sleep in and still make happy hour upon arrival. Saturday night is spent on Bourbon street after arrival at NAS New Orleans. They are nice enough to put us up a block off Bourbon street and the marine driver promises to be there in the morning for a 0930 pickup. That will allow us to leisurely preflight, file our flight plan and takeoff at 1100 for the ~350 mile flight to the home drome airshow. After the flyby, we will continue on to Patrick AFB for the Sunday afternoon bikini contest on Coco Beach at one of the local bars. Perfect plan. After helping the N’awlins locals deplete a large portion of their Hurricanes we grab a few winks and get up for the 0930 pickup.

The fun begins when the driver gets lost and can’t find the hotel. He finally picks us up at 1040. 30 minutes later we get to the base and have one guy filing a flight plan, another loading bags and the rest are doing a run-around preflight on the jets. Scramble start follows and we blast off the runway with 5 single ship AB takeoffs at 1135 with on board nav systems showing we’ll be 5 minutes late (we’re so DEAD). #1’s burner cooks a looooong time he asks for clearance for non-standard formation. That’s good because as #4 I’m now 30 seconds and 5 miles behind him doing 600 knots with 5 knots of closure showing on my radar. Perfect – it’s going to take me an hour to close up into formation. I’m sure ATC was probably wondering what 5 Eagles are doing in a 6 mile long string doing 600 knots down the Florida panhandle coast on a Sunday morning. Once we level at ~10,000, the extra speed starts to help and it looks like we’ll be able to arrive with a couple of minutes to spare – maybe we’ll be able to save our bacon after all.

60 miles out, we call the “Air boss” to begin coordinating the fly-by. The Air Boss is a rather portly good ole boy who seems to have things well in hand. He tells us to “smoke a lucky, fellas” as things have slipped 30 minutes and we all breathe a sigh of relief. #1 immediately slaps his throttle to idle and lack of closure is no long a problem. We get cleared into a local MOA to form up and get ready for the push into the fly-by. The Air boss gives us the 2 minute call, the ‘just kidding” call, the “okay for real 2 minutes”, “standby, I’ll call you back” and then silence. After a longer than anticipated delay, a new voice (Airman Smith – who’s making the first radio transmission of his life) comes on and say “Uhhhh, sir? The radio in the Air boss vehicle broke and he’s running to a new truck………but the music has started”.

As we all try not to laugh at the visual of the Air Boss humping his girth across the ramp to try to find an operable UHF radio, we simultaneously realize we’re back to being late again. #1 racks up his jet to turn us around filling my canopy with F-15 while selecting full AB. Several negative Gs are required to stay in formation and not kill a couple of us but we manage to get turned inbound and do our best to make the TOT. As we hit the airfield boundary, an out of breath Air Boss finally comes up on the freq and while he deals with a coronary, he tells us we’re looking good with the final notes of the National Anthem in the background.
Fuel becomes an issue thanks to the day’s events up to that point but we are able to sky-hook into Patrick and make it to the bikini contest. The things we do for our country.

 

[DOVPILOT]

Q: are the pilots listening to the broadcast while positioning or is it just timimg thing?