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Grim War Statistic of the Day

2:47 PM, Apr 8, 2008 • By JOHN NOONAN
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Air Force cuts totally awesome flyovers by over 50 percent:

...it can seem there's hardly an event without a flyover these days. The roar of jet engines is heard at everything from Major League Baseball games to NASCAR races to town fairs and community parades. With requests for flyovers rocketing nationwide - to 3,623 last year, a 37 percent jump from the previous year - the Air Force says it is cutting back.

Instead of providing flyovers at 108 NASCAR races, as they did four years ago, Air Force officials this year approved 38. Some National Football League teams used to have flyovers at every home game; now they're limited to four flyovers a season. And Major League Baseball teams are also now limited to four flyovers a year: for the season opener, the first games of the playoffs, and the World Series.

Last year, the Air Force approved 843 flyovers, down from 1,009 in 2006.

F-16s from the Virginia Air National Guard (now flying the F-22) would occasionally fly over our parades back when I was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute. Motivating stuff, and almost impossible to keep your eyes locked forward and your head properly aligned when there are fine Virginia Gentlemen doing 200 knots directly above you.

Still, the Air Force made the right call here. Mission first, mission always. The Thunderbirds fly the oldest F-16s in the fleet for this very reason: wartime requirements are more important than razzle-dazzle aerial spectacles.

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