Time On Target
Something’s been bugging me lately: flyovers of military aircraft during sporting events, generally in conjunction with the national anthem.
I’m not bothered by the fact that they’re happening. Jingoistic aspects aside, as an aviation buff I think it’s cool to see these high-tech birds flying in close formation.
The trouble is, more often than not, their Time On Target is for shit.
The way it should work, when a flyover is part of the national anthem presentation, is this. The last line is sung, “And the home of the brave,” the crowd begins to cheer, and a beat or two later—ROAR!!!
Sometimes it’s not the aircrews’ fault. I can’t recall who it was (some country combo) or what game this past autumn (one of the baseball league championships), but those boys were not only painfully off-key while struggling in vain to sing harmony a cappella, but they dragged the song out for a solid 30 seconds longer than it warranted. No wonder the jets came over before the last verse had even begun.
Sometimes they nail it. The 2007 Tournament of Roses Parade is a good example, with a B-2 Spirit bomber and three F-22 Raptors coming in with perfect timing (and cool contrail effects off the Raptors’ twin tails). I can only imagine the shock to the spectators, with that B-2 cruising down Colorado Boulevard.
But too often, they just blast through with no regard for the fact that people should be singing the national anthem, not drowned out by the roar of jets. I’m going to believe that the call to turn in is being made by oblivious television or festivity directors, who as usual aren’t quite on the ball. I’d hate to believe that our military could be that inaccurate on their own.
I wrote the preceding a month ago, never getting around to actually posting it. Leave it to the USAF Thunderbirds to blow my unaired complaint completely out of the water at Super Bowl XLI. Sure, Billy Joel helped a bit, staying true to his word that he would not “stretch it [the national anthem] beyond its recognition.” But it was absolutely precision timing on the part of the ’Birds, who blasted through at extremely low altitude exactly as Joel’s final chord faded away. Even knowing it was coming—the camera was pointed at the upper tier and the Jumbotron, in the shot, showed a cockpit view of a fighter pilot with the Thunderbirds patch on his breast, clearly on approach—I was completely astonished by the spectacle.
Speaking of that camera shot, that CBS cameraman deserves accolades for it. Standing on the sidelines with a shoulder-carried cam, he or she caught the delta formation completely in frame for the entire pass, which lasted no more than a second at most. The F-16s blasted out of complete darkness and rain, vanished in an instant, and that cameraman caught every moment of it. Nice job.
