I’ve been to several sporting events (most recently, the Holiday Bowl) where the singing of the national anthem is followed – within seconds – of a flyover by military aircraft.
The timing is almost always remarkably precise: within moments of the end of the Nat’l Anth, here come the jets, seemingly out of nowhere. Never early, never late.
How do they do this? The timing can’t be known in advance that well, since pre-game activities can’t be timed that precisely. Are the pilots in communication with the stadium? And even if so, how do they “hover” x miles from the stadium, until the precise moment?
I imagine they are in radio contact with a Ground Controller at the stadium, and (these days, anyway) the planes have the GPS coordinate of the stadium plugged in. The Ground Controller would give a countdown to the time they should fly over, based on rehearsal times of the singer, and the lead plane sets speed to hit the GPS point at the right time. GPS will give time of travel to the next point based on current speed and current location. If no GPS is in use, the same timing can be done (after rehearsal) with a known reference point on the ground (bridge, interstate intersection, a particular landmark building, etc…) and known speed and distances.
Everything the military does in actual operations is controlled and timed right down to the second. If these planes can deliver bombs on target at a specified time, it shouldn’t be at all surprising that they can do something as simple as a timed flyover.
These things are carefully rehearsed, so the timing is set. When the singer starts the anthem, the pilots break their holding pattern and make their run. As long as the singer doesn’t screw up, the fly-over will be right on time. Ground to air communications make such a thing a breeze.
I’m just guessing here, but I’ll bet they time the singer to the approach of the planes, not the appreoach of the planes to the singer.
They probably start with a ballpark (sorry) time that the jets must be at a point to begin their approach. If they know that it takes x amount of time to fly from that point to the stadium and they know how long it will take the singer to finish the song, they can cue the singer at the point where s/he will end just a few seconds before the planes arrive. Simple, really.
I have to admit, I hadn’t considered the possibility of rehearsals–which would make timing easier. I thought the event organizers just called the local air base, and asked if they could spare a couple of F-14’s for Saturday; gametime is 1:30.
No, in every baseball Opening Day that I’ve attended, the singing of the National Anthem is live; in fact sung by some celebrity. A couple of things to note: (1) the jets are already in the air when the ceremonies start, so I assume that they just go into their approach pattern when they’re cued from the ground; and (2) these special fly-overs happen year after year, so they’ve had a lot of practice. Actually, these fly-overs don’t impress me anymore, but I still get a charge from someone landing on the field in a parachute!
The planes probably pick an initial point (IP) from which to start the run and they know the time from that point to the stadium. They then loiter in the vicinity of the point and get a countdown by radio. The zero countdown is timed to occur before the end of the anthem by the time from the IP to the stadium The leader knows where he is relative to the IP and can time it so that he comes over it near or just after the countdown reaches zero. After you have done it a few times it’s easy.
I remember an interview with one of the pilots that works on base that has conducted numerous flyovers. They call them X seconds before the anticipated end of the anthem (based on rehearsals) and they begin their run.
He noted that sometimes they are a few seconds late or a few seconds early, you’ve just never seen these. He has done dozens in the SoCal area. Wish I could remember where I heard or read the whole interview.
At a NA$CAR event at Lowes Motorspeedway in Concord, NC I had the pleasure of watching a stealth bomber loiter a few miles away during the anthem until the end when the pilot then flew over the track. Didn’t seem like that hard of a trick: “Ok, she’s about finished, let’s go!”
Anyone else remember the very unscheduled parachute landing in the Shea Stadium infield by Mets fan Michael Sergio during the first inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series?
I’m thinking that the singer also has an earplug linked to the pilot, and the pilot tells the singer how long to hold that last note–“home of the Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave.” Ka Boom
There is no KA-BOOM. Exceeding the speed of sound in the United States is illegal unless approved, and there’s zero chance of gaining that approval for a ceremonial fly-by.
AS a member of the OSU marching band at oregon state I can tell you that the Pregame activities ARE times exactly. They have a dorky schedule and it literally says 2PM Team’s start warming up, 2:10 teams leave the field, 2:10-2:15 Marching band pregame, 2:15-2:17 coin flip, 2:17-2:19 dancing monkeys. Its all timed EXACTLY so the game starts at 2:30 just in time for TV. You’d be surprised how anal they are about it.
My understanding of standard procedures for timed flyover is thus:
Pick landmark a fixed distance from fly-over point (but not too far) prior to event
Determine proper speed to fly to get to fly-over point in a specific time period.
On Event Day, circle near landmark
On the ground at the event, someone has a portable radio to allow communication with the airplane(s). They cue the airplane(s) to start their run. (Prior to handheld radios this cue might have been something else - a balloon release, perhaps, or other visual signal)
Airplane flies over landmark, notes time, adjusts speed if necessary.
Airplane flies over designated spot, usually within a second or two of planned time.
I’m doing a fly-by in a couple weeks. It doesn’t* require* GPS, but GPS is a nice tool. It’s pretty much like David Simmons described - but varies based on whether the flyover time is fixed, or departure from the loitering fix has to be cued from the ground (say, three minutes prior to the end of the national anthem, depart a fix three minutes away from the festivities).
Being on time is a pretty fundamental part of military flying; time-on-target is one example. My personal favorite is certain aerial refueling operations that require the tanker and receiver to arrive at the air refueling initial point at the same time. The official tolerance for an enroute rendezvous was usually within a minute of the contact time, but it’s not hard to be there within a second or two, and that’s what we always tried for because it minimized the time a receiver would waste flying to contact. The key is always good planning, and fixing any inflight timing errors early.
I’m with The Cat on this one. Most of these events are televised, at least locally or for cable, often nationally. The idea that they do not have the timing down very close in advance strikes me as an odd perception. The fact that the planes are a “few seconds” early or late is probably due to the vagaries of the length of the singing, but I would expect all the events up to the first pitch, kickoff, tossing of the first dwarf, or whatever to be very closely controlled.
