Results tagged “flyover”

Tomorrow around noon expect to see a lot of action in the sky — a military flyover is scheduled! You'll see ospreys and harrier jets over the Hudson River from the Verrazano to the George Washington Bridge. But have no fear, it's all in celebration of the USS New York commissioning ceremony. If you get any good shots of the flyover action, send us your photos!

Hey! The Pentagon is just like us, tracking blogs and social media for trends. When it released its report about the ill-planned Air Force One flyover in late April, buried in the pages of documents were details that the military was gauging fallout online: One email read, "Web site blog comments ‘furious’ at best"—like this one!—"Twitter search reveals ‘tweets’ regarding two F-16’s chasing commercial airliner. Rate of 1 tweet per minute and growing" (Twitter rate was later 3 Tweets/minutes!). And the Christian Science Monitor noticed that the Pentagon also ignored the warnings of USAF Maj Gen Brian P. Meenan, who wrote, "NYC populace can be sensitive to airplanes that appear lower than normal or tracks not normally seen over the NYC area. Influenced by 9/11. Have seen one or two instances of civil aircraft cleared for visual arrivals that triggered inquiries to media and local officials concerning unusual flt activity from folks on the ground." The AP—which notes that even a Pentagon PowerPoint chart admitted "No positive spin is possible"—also found that the Air Force's cell that monitors Internet chatter suggested, "Government involvement in this incident could be used to frame expected handling of H1N1 outbreak."

This morning the NYC Office of Emergency Management announced that "a P-3 Orion reconnaissance military plane will fly down and back up the Hudson River between the hours of 10:30 to 11:30 a.m." Coming as it does after the Air Force One photo-op debacle, the fly-by must have been for a pretty important reason, right? Well, the Post has it that it was arranged as a retirement present from a Naval base in Maine to a "veteran aviator." Apparently, the FAA had approved the request months ago and informed the city at that time, but had not specified the date until this morning. The Bloomberg administration says they didn't ask for the flight to be canceled, but informed the FAA that it would have been nice to have a little more notice to prepare New Yorkers for additional traumatic 9/11 flashbacks. After the NYC Office of Emergency Management announced the flyby, the FAA reversed itself and revoked permission for the flight, the AP reports. FAA party-poopers reportedly told commanders at Naval Air Station Brunswick that they couldn't risk further public panic for the sake of a going-away party.

The White House spent up to $357,000 for the Presidential Airlift Group—which includes the 747 that is Air Force One when the President is on board and a military fighter jet escort—to fly over lower Manhattan and take pictures—and is the photograph they release? It's really mediocre—we guess they didn't want to spend the money/time to Photoshop it up. And why not at least give us a shot of the darn plane in front of the lower Manhattan skyline? Or is that too good for us?

After initially saying that the photographs from the NYC flyover made by the Presidential Airlift Group (which includes the plane that is Air Force One when the President is on board) be released, the White House has decided that an image will be released after all. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who had previously said, "I've watched CNN. I didn't notice a lack of archival material from that flight," now tells reporters, "The report, I believe, will be concluded at some point this week. We'll release its findings and release a photo." The flight cost over $328,000 and was apparently spurred by the White House Military Office's desire to update its file photos of Air Force One near the canyons of buildings in lower Manhattan.

Let's take the Air Force One flyover incident into yet another day! Fox News wanted to calculate the cost beyond the $328,835 it cost to fly the Boeing 747 and fighter jets on Monday, so it asked Mayor Bloomberg's office "how much the city had to spend to deal with the panic." Apparently NYC 911 got flyover-related 97 calls (about a 15% increase) in an hour while Jersey City said it received about 13 calls.

       

The verdict is out, and yesterday's lower Manhattan flyover by the "Boeing 747 sometimes known as Air Force One" and military jets was a bad idea. So bad that the White House Military Office's director Luis Caldera apologized for the mission. It was so bad that the city official who knew about the event but didn't tell the mayor was "reprimanded and a disciplinary letter has been placed in his file," according to Newsday.

      

Yesterday evening the British Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows, dazzled onlookers as they put on a 25-minute show over New York. Many in New Jersey and New York saw the nine-pilot team as they arrived and departed as well. For those who missed it, luckily some photographers were at the right place at the right time.