Quote:
Originally Posted by mike1003
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Flyovers come from a different pot of money (programmed flying hours) which are intended for use as combat readiness training. The demo teams have their own money. There's not a lot of utility to the flyover, except for the goodwill and patriotism they may inspire. Flyovers take flying time that could be reserved for combat training and shift it to a non-productive mission, often after hours or on weekends, requiring extra manpower, especially if it's an ANG or Reserve unit flying the mission. As a commander I used to get all sorts of requests for a funeral flyover for someone who served in WW II or Korea and was discharged as an E-3 at the end of the war. I'm not trying to diminish their value, especially for recruiting and bolstering morale, but they are generally at best a break-even affair.
Personally, I never liked doing a flyover for because for the pilots they're usually no-win. If someone's out of position as the formation passes overhead you'll hear about it (remember the 1991 Super Bowl) and if the person singing the National Anthem decides to put their own spin on it or flubs a line you'll arrive overhead too early, as she starts "O'er the land of the free...". No way to slow down enough in an F-16. Arrive late and you'll hear of it as well. Now, B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft can integrate a flyover into a training mission and get some useful mission elements accomplished in a five-hour sortie, but not generally in a fighter four-ship. Case in point: in the very early 90s I was part of a Veterans Day parade flyover (#4 in a four-ship) and in an attempt to get some training out of it, we flew to a nearby Military Operations Area to do a set of basic fighter maneuvers first. #3 had an afterburner blowout and had to go back and land... no biggie, but our four-ship was down to a three-ship. If we had dedicated ourselves to the flyover we would have had a four-ship with no real productive mission.
The flight lead said, as we headed out the door for that Veterans Day parade flyover, "We all get to bet our wings today."
I'm not saying that they should end... I really think flyovers, especially well-executed by noisy fighter jets at NASCAR races, are as cool as it gets. It's just that there's another side of the story that is relevant as well, especially with shrinking PFH budgets.
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