Saturday Flyover Alert: Practically an Airshow

Submitted by BlueBarron on

This year, the University is celebrating 100 years of the aerospace department (of which I'm a grad, yayy). Here is the flyover schedule for Saturday, it's awesome (with pictures because I'm an aviation photogrpaher):

B-17 'Yankee Lady'

B-25 'Yankee Warrior'


This here's 'Panchito' but similar color scheme to 'Yankee Warrior'

P-51 Mustang, F-86 Sabre, F-100 Super Sabre


Not necessarily flying together. I've heard the F-100 will do an afterburner pop over the stadium, which is really cool. Might make ya jump.

Boeing Stearman



Lockheed Electra Model 12

T-34 Demo Team


There are also three helicopters listed:

Enstrom 480B
Eurocopter
Sikorsky S58T

And that's all I'm allowed to say ;)

EDIT: Also, don't expect these to all fly together. An F-100 can't really fly slow enough to stay in a good formation with a P-51 (see Thunder Over Michigan Airshow 2013). I've heard that they will start doing flyovers at about 3:15.

Bando Calrissian

September 18th, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^

I look at it this way: Dave Brandon is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at trying to sell tickets to these games. He thinks the solution is this "epic," "WOW EXPERIENCE" stuff at the expense of what's going down on the field. 

Remember when Michigan Football was the attraction of Michigan Football? And not bouncy castles and free cotton candy and an airshow and a flash mob like the stadium is some kind of carnival midway? 

So, yes, I kind of hate this, because it's so transparently tacky. Michigan spent 125 years building an identity that was above shit like this. Now we're just a goofy marketing department with an Athletic Department, too.

BlueBarron

September 18th, 2014 at 4:57 PM ^

OR. It's because the aerospace department just turned 100 years old and there's been celebrations, lunches, speakers, etc all day today and tomorrow in the FXB to commemorate it, and to cap it all off there's a bunch of flyovers for the football game. A lot of people are defaulting to "RABBLE RABBLE DAVE BRANDON" when I'd really wish they would just take a moment to appreciate the department that I devoted 4 years of my life to and just enjoy aviation.

Alvin Wistert

September 18th, 2014 at 4:06 PM ^

Needs more planes designed by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson besides the Electra for a very successful aero alum. Could use U-2, f-104 unfortunately their are no flying SR-71's, that would be cool. Get all those skunk works planes he helped develop for a flyby.  Still that is a very impressive combination of planes hope the weather is permissible.

BlueMan80

September 18th, 2014 at 5:54 PM ^

I demand a B-24 Liberator!  They were built at Willow Run for Pete's sake.  Local stuff.

And how about a P-38 Lightning?  The twin tailed devil.

And a C-5A Galaxy?  That's not a fly over.  It's an eclipse.  They built these in Georgia when I was a kid and flew over my football practice field just about every day.  Big shadow on the ground.

And where's the Goodyear blimp?

You Only Live Twice

September 18th, 2014 at 9:32 PM ^

 Didn't know there was another "F100" besides the Fokker F100 commericial aircraft, which reminded me of the DC-9-10 series models, except I think that F100 had leading edge flaps and the DC-9-10s did not....

 

004

September 18th, 2014 at 9:59 PM ^

It's in honor of the 100th anniversary of Michigan's Aero Eng program... The oldest undergrad aero program in the country / yup I'm an alum despite my username.

G-Man

September 19th, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^

Looks like the part the OP coyly referred to when he said he wasn't allowed to share all the details just got canceled anyway.

The FAA found out Michigan was going to deliver the game ball with a drone and stepped in to stop it:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-19/michigan-s-pigskin-delivery-dr…

"The University of Michigan Wolverines plan to use an unmanned aircraft to deliver the game ball tomorrow before the kickoff against University of Utah at its Ann Arbor stadium, which holds the most sports fans in the U.S.

That was news to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has only approved limited drone operations."