The Proverbial Blind Hog and the Acorn....

[FlyinSpy]

OK, no posts here for a month - so here's a good story with a useful intel moral at the end:

Squadron just back from Iraq, not a whole lot of people looking to go on a weekend x-country - even if that x-country is to do a 2-jet fly-by to start the Busch-series NASCAR race in Kansas City. The deal was do the fly by, land, and then buster back to the track to catch the second half of the race. Pit passes included. Since they didn't have full crews, I (the beloved Spy), threw my hat in the ring and snagged my favorite ECMO-3 seat.

I knew we were in for a good deal when we were out for dinner Friday nite and random strangers were buying us drinks and appetizers. Little did I know the true rock star status that awaited us the next day at the race...

So we do the fly by, and cross the perimeter of the stadium exactly on cue - she sings "..of the brave!", and on "brave", we're over the track. (Which, from a timing standpoint, is a lot harder than it looks - compare and contrast us to the F-16s that did the flyby to start the NEXTEL race on Sunday - they hit the track somewhere around "twilights last gleaming"...). We get to the track, and as we circulate it's apparent that people in the Midwest are A) extremely supportive of the military, and B) never get a chance to express their support in person. Oh, the love! Kind of hard to describe the outpouring of support that people wanted to express - some wanted autographs, some wanted pictures, some wanted hugs, some wanted to talk, and some, well, some wanted *more*. Lots more. Signed tons of hats, posed for lots of pics, ate lots of free food, drank lots of free drinks. Attempted (with little success) to fend off women from 16-60 who, for god knows whatever reason (mostly fueled by a potent mix of alcohol and patriotism) wanted a piece of me. Very odd experience for the middle-aged Reservist Direct Commission Spy.

A few morals:

1) Many Americans see the military as heroes right now, and want to express their support and thanks.

2) There are awesome PR opportunities out there; the big giant heads in the Service PR business need to figure out how to better tap this support. Get more troops out where the people can see them!

3) When Ops asks you if you want to do a fly-by, you say YES!

4) The Intel moral? Even the Spy can get the occasional good deal, if you play your cards right. Remember - luck is when preparation meets opportunity!

 

[Fly Navy]

I believe it's blind squirrel.

 

[eddie]

I believe it's blind squirrel.

Naaaw, I'm pretty sure it's pig, or hog.

But that's AWESOME FlyinSpy!

 

[Cobra Commander]

I'm gonna have to say it's pigs. Pigs love acorns more than squirrels.

 

[raptor10]

I think the latest intel on the subject shows hogs love acorns more than squirrels. Esp. blind hogs...

 

[Semper Jump Jet]

Harrier Dude, tell us your NASCAR Fly-By story! (it's slightly more colorful, but equally cool in the end!)

 

[wink]

No No, pigs love truffles. Well, French pigs anyway.

 

[T.M.Gray]

"French pigs," eh? Are you referring to the ones with four legs or the ones with two?

 

[Harrier Dude]

Harrier Dude, tell us your NASCAR Fly-By story! (it's slightly more colorful, but equally cool in the end!)

If by "colorful" you mean "all fvcked up", then OK.

As a RAG IP I got to lead a division fly-by for the Fall Martinsville race. As a dedicated NASCAR fan, the skipper let me take it so I could see the race.

We had a guy on the ground with a radio to help with timing (an absolute MUST if you get to do one) since the timeline is somewhat flexible. Much more so than I thought it would be.

We didn't have any precision coordinates for the track, so we pulled a grid off a VFR sectional and planned on updating them with onboard sensors prior to the pass. Martinsville is the smallest track on the circuit and is down in a valley, so it isn't easy to see. The weather was not great but workable (about 3000' and 6SM).

On the way out to our IP, I had -2 take a mark of the track using his DMT (I was in a 2 seat trainer which doesn't have one) and entered the grid into my INS. I had planned on ingressing at 450 kts (I had checked with the FAA who said that it was fine as long as I stayed above 1000' AGL) and departing the IP when the Anthem started (00:02:12 from the TOT). The Commandant of the Marine Corps was going to be there, so no pressure.

Anyway, I held below the wx about 8-10 NM from the track, and hence lost sight of it. I was totally committed to my INS coordinates and ground gouge on the ingress. At the push time, our ground guy said "They're starting the Anthem", so I pushed. About 20 seconds later he said "No, wait.....they haven't started yet", followed by "OK.....it's starting". In the mean time I had started a left 360 for timing and was now behind. Time to buster.

I had the designation diamond in my HUD with a courseline drawn in for the orientation of the track. I concentrated on the timing while scanning for the TV helicopter and banner plane. My wingman were in perfect fingertip parade and looked good. I told the ground guy that I didn't have the track in sight, and he said "You're looking good, keep it coming".

I overflew my designation diamond at exactly TOT, but despite my panic scan for the track, didn't see it. Right as I passed the markpoint, I looked right and saw the track at 3 O'clock for about a mile and a half.

I told my wingmen (all IPs) "Hold on.....coming right" and commenced a fairly rapid and hard (for parade) 3G turn into my division. This resulted in them pulling 5-7 Gs to stay anywhare close to in position. End result, we passed over the track opposite direction (which didn't matter) at about 500 kts in a totally assed-up formation (my fault) about 48 seconds after the end of the Anthem. The Commandant was somewhat less than impressed.

Lessons learned:

1) Don't let systems drive you away from basic nav skills. My -2 missed some key finger drills on generating his markpoint, so the grid he gave me was way off. I bet the farm on that grid (complancency and over-reliance on systems) and let my basic eyeball nav scan drop in an effort to avoid the traffic near the track. Keep sight at all costs with the track as you won't be popping and be able to acquire the track like a target. My fault.

2)Thoroughly brief your ground guy on what you want to hear. Timing, ITG, form, etc. The timeline is pretty loose. The network would only give me a 5 minute window on when they would start the Anthem. Without a guy physically on the ground with a radio, you'll be guessing at best. When I heard "You're looking good.....Keep it coming", I assumed we were lined up correctly and that I would see the track under the diamond. If I had told him how hard the track would be to see from 1000', he could have given me better gouge. My fault.

3) Always remember that any maneuvers that you make, so matter how benign they may seem in -1, are amplified down the line. I'm lucky I had experienced wingmen who could hack that turn without bouncing off each other. My fault.

Good points:

1) No matter how assed-up the flyby is, the fans will LOVE it anyway. 99% won't know the difference anyway. If you're smooth, the singer and the cameraman will make things look good. They're trying to help you with the timing.

2) The race was a blast! We got to go wherever we wanted. Jack Rousch was talking to us and got us in the winners circle after the race. We were in the pits the whole day, and the only thing keeping us off the track during the race was common sense and a natural fear of death. Don't pass up the opportunity to see it from the pits.

I've done a couple more NASCAR flybys since then (one as -4 and one as the ground guy) and the LLs above really helped make them come off better. As the flight lead, anything that happens is my fault, and as embarrassing as it was, I learned something and had a good time.

 

[Brett327]

^^ Some thoughts after having done lots of these things.

1. It's better from the crowd's perspective to do a slow pass rather than a high speed one. If you're zorching by at five bills, you'll be gone by the time the crowd knows what's happening. We would do ours <200 kts with flaps/hook down. This also maximizes the noise factor which is a big plus for the crowd as well.

2. The Safeco field gig in Seattle was pretty standard for us, so the routes/timing were pretty well worked out, but when at an unfamiliar location, give your on-site radio guy a hand held GPS to pass you the lat/long and an offset to maximize exposure to the crowd.

3. Have a good idea of how long the average National Anthem takes and plan your timing gates accordingly. Our unofficial SOP was to have the radio guy sing along on the radio every odd verse so we would have a real time update from which to adjust our timing.

Brett

 

[scoober78]

Really enjoying this thread guys...isn't it amusing to step back for a second and consider how seriously we're talking about flying airplanes over a stadium full of drunk screaming civilians...

Thanks.

 

[skidkid]

and uhhh fly over the site at least once before and have a good GPS IP for timing and a good grid for field center.

Last years Superbowl Rhino fly over was terrible on TV I can only imagine how bad in person. a solid minute late and really high.

 

[Harrier Dude]

and uhhh fly over the site at least once before and have a good GPS IP for timing and a good grid for field center.

Last years Superbowl Rhino fly over was terrible on TV I can only imagine how bad in person. a solid minute late and really high.

In their defense, it probably had a lot to do with having (or not having) a guy on the ground to tell them when the singing will start. The Rhinos did a fly-by for one of the World Series games (maybe ALCS?) a couple of years ago (Angels) that was a least 5 minutes late. My guess was that they were operating on TOT provided by the network.

I figured (prior to doing one) that with air time costing so much that the network would have a gnats-A$$ TOT for the fly-by, but they don't. It's all a guess. If you can't talk to somebody on the ground you'll never know how things are going.

Also, be wary of anything else that they have going that they didn't tell you about that can affect your safety such as banner towers, camera helos, parachute jumpers, and fireworks to name just a few. You might be surprised what they didn't tell you about.

 

[Brett327]

Last years Superbowl Rhino fly over was terrible on TV I can only imagine how bad in person. a solid minute late and really high.

Lots of times that is set by higher authority and out of the aviator's hands. No excuse for being late/not having a ground radio guy, especially for the Superbowl. I would have imagined that something that big would have included a practice run or three the day prior.

Brett

 

[skidkid]

some challenges gettting a PRC-113 to work inside a stadium all you mgiht get is two clicks. As in "IM pushing if I need to delay key twice"