Originally Posted by
MD10PLT
I did a flyby for NASCAR one time. I was pretty impressed how well the promoter handled all the coordination. He had an AF ALO come down with all his radios to act as the FAC. He also had his own guy sing the national anthem. He told us in the prebrief his singer could vary the length of the song by a minute. Thus he would give us a TOT 4 minutes prior and then use the singer to adjust for changes. Pretty hard to screw this one up. Those NASCAR guys really had their sh!t together.
VFA-106 did the Daytona 500 quite a few years when they were at NAS Cecil Field. The coordination was always good for the fly-over and the support they provided the aircrew and maintenance det at the race was top notch! Those guys know how to take care of you!
Some of the toughest I have done are the fly-bys for burials at Arlington. Very complicated to coordinate both on the ground (takes three people - one at Washington Center, one graveside, and one at the cemetery on the radio) then the holding point is VFR to the east of the cemetery and they have to come across Regan National - shutting down ops for a few. As tough as it is though - it is very satisfying and very moving.
USMCFLYR