Thunderbirds scheduled for fly-over at NBA All-Star game

Post by **Lawndart** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:10 pm

Thunderbirds scheduled for fly-over at NBA All-Star game at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. As long as the roof is open the fly-over should be visible.

Via Facebook:

#12 wrote:Am in Dallas now, preparing for the first-ever fly over of an NBA event. Will be flying over the largest NBA audience ever at the 2010 NBA All Star Game at Cowboy's Stadium on Feb 14! Look for the Delta at 6 p.m.

Whack · Post by **Whack** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:48 am

Boy the WX is nasty here right now! 1/8mi vis and cold!!! Hope it clears up for the festivities this afternoon! It will be a cold day to have the roof of the "Death Star" open regardless.

Post by **Lawndart** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 6:09 pm

Showing cold, unrestricted vis and high overcast at DFW now... Time to open the "Death Star"!

Country music star Gretchen Wilson to sing National Anthem

TNT will tip off pregame coverage at 7 p.m. ET when the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, the air demonstration squadron of the U.S. Air Force, will execute the first-ever NBA All-Star fly-over[/url] followed by an exclusive performance by Grammy-nominated band OneRepublic.

Post by **Lawndart** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:43 am

You can tell how much "Ice" and "Nuke" are working it. Since they just flew the Diamond for the first time about two weeks ago, and put the Delta together about one week ago - not too bad!

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:54 am

#6 is jamming that throttle around pretty hard. Forward/aft a lot.

Did they actually open the top of the stadium? Seemed like they weren't within line of sight of the seats...

Frazer · Post by **Frazer** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:58 am

Beaker wrote:#6 is jamming that throttle around pretty hard. Forward/aft a lot.

Did they actually open the top of the stadium? Seemed like they weren't within line of sight of the seats...

I was thinking the same, but this is a pretty rare shot as it is almost 100% stable. Pretty much the same what we always see in game, and with that you see every little relative movement.

Anyway, I think it would be a lot nicer if they do a loop instead of just a flyby. For just a few seconds of enjoyment, it's almost pointless to fire up 6 engines IMO.

Post by **Lawndart** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:49 am

It's all about publicity and hype, because in the end the U.S. military teams are recruiting tools.

As far as the movement within the formation, it will get better by show season at the end of March. What people forget is that any sporting event with a flyover during the winter months features a new team that hasn't even been accepted and signed off for the air show season yet. The new Thunderbird team flew the Diamond formation for the first time this year on January 29th - so they pretty much only had the cross country flight over from Las Vegas to Dallas to practice the Delta formation with the Solos added for the first time.

Sawamura · Post by **Sawamura** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:01 pm

Beaker wrote:Did they actually open the top of the stadium? Seemed like they weren't within line of sight of the seats...

At 0:52, 0:53, you have a good view of the stadium. Looks like the top was closed.

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:01 pm

Sawamura wrote:
Beaker wrote:Did they actually open the top of the stadium? Seemed like they weren't within line of sight of the seats...
At 0:52, 0:53, you have a good view of the stadium. Looks like the top was closed.

True nuff!

Frazer - When you watch one of our teams, it's almost always with some sort of padlocked view, which is perfectly stationary. It makes any movement show up to a very high degree. I know in our case, at least, if you were to use the same view with the real team, you would see relatively the same amount of movement. It's always nice to see that view now and then. Confidence booster!