If you are like me, you have sat in the stands at a race or another major sporting event and watched in awe as some sort of aircraft zoomed across the sky. I have lost track of how many flyovers I have witnessed in person, but I am amazed every single time. That feeling of wonder and anticipation has never faded.
Have you ever thought about who is up there? Are they as thrilled as we are down here? Can they hear the cheers?
I’m sure the majority of people have never met someone who has performed a flyover. However, I have the pleasure of introducing our readers to Captain Mike Bartoletta, one of the pilots who performed the flyover over Darlington Raceway before the Southern 500. He was gracious enough to answer questions about his job in the Air Force and his experience in the sky Sunday.
I hope you enjoy Over the Track! And be sure to thank a pilot the next time you see one.
Meet Captain Mike Bartoletta
Tiffany Faw: What is your ranking and title?
Captain Mike Bartoletta: Captain Mike “BASS” Bartoletta
Faw: Can you give us a little general background- where are you from? Schooling? How long have you been in the military? Are you planning to make a career out of the Air Force?
Bartoletta: Grew up in Tampa, FL, and attended school at Florida State University (Go Noles! Defeated #5 LSU 45-24 on the same day as the Darlington Cookout Southern 500 race). FSU’s Air Force ROTC program gave me the opportunity to commission and become an Officer in the US Air Force with the job of becoming an Air Force Pilot.
In training, I was fortunate enough to do well and get selected to fly F-16s for my career, my #1 choice! I have been serving for just over four years and became a Captain not too long ago, with about 6-8 years left before I decide the next move, either separate or stay longer.
I never grew up with anyone in my family being a pilot or had much connection to the military. A lot of this was on a whim and I had no idea if I was capable of doing anything remotely close to what I do now.
My message to anyone who wants to go fly jets is: you can do anything you put your mind to achieving! Very thankful for the position and opportunity I am now to be able to serve our country via flying fighter jets, a dream come true!
Job, Roles, and the Fun Side of Things
Faw: What is your job in the Air Force? What is normal day-to-day life for you? And where are you currently stationed?
Bartoletta: I’m stationed at McEntire Joint National Guard Base in Columbia, South Carolina. My primary job is to be an F-16 Pilot, which is a pretty sweet job that comes with a ton of responsibility. Every day and every flight could be different. Some days I fly once or twice, some days I study new intelligence, some days we prepare for missions simulating real-world engagements with enemy aircraft or targets and come up with tactics and game plans to defeat them. Then we get together as a formation of two, four, six, or even eight F-16s at once and execute the game plan.
Post-flight usually includes the standard helping of jalapeño popcorn (don’t knock it until you try it) and refreshing drinks before going into the debrief room, picking apart every good and bad thing that happened with objectivity, so everyone learns what happened, why, and how we can do something better next time. The debriefs sometimes last way longer than the flights themselves…
At the end of the day though, we are all expected to train to and execute our tactics at a high level of proficiency to be combat-ready for when it’s time to take our skills out to the real world and that is a huge responsibility to not scoff. A majority of, if not all, pilots have extra duties ranging from stocking the snack bar to being the squadron commander so it is easy to get carried away and lose sight of the mission
Faw: What are some of the planes you have flown and do you have a favorite?Â
Bartoletta: T-6A, T-38C, and F-16CM. My favorite is definitely the F-16 – raw performance and power, real missions, and the only non-trainer aircraft I’ve flown. It’s an amazing piece of machinery dictated largely by science on how it was designed.
95% of the aircraft is behind the pilot and you have this great bubble canopy providing amazing viewing in all directions. You don’t really feel like you’re flying a plane, rather the plane fits like a glove and is an extension of your body. So incredibly ergonomically designed and revolutionary
My favorite mission in the F-16 is definitely Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (or SEAD), i.e. degrading or destroying some of the missile sites and radars used to kill our friendly airplanes. It’s rewarding to be an escort player and successfully protect your buddies so they can go in and hit their targets. A great read is the Wild Weasel story and how it originated in the Vietnam War against the North Vietnamese, Soviet-Built SA-2 missile systems. YGBSM!
The Details of Flyovers
Faw: Was this your 1st flyover? If not, what others have you done?
Bartoletta: My third flyover. The first one I did was for Francis Marion’s memorial Flyover. Every year our organization (the Swamp Foxes) helps top off the ceremony commemorating the passing of Francis Marion. During the years of 1775-1783, General Francis Marion earned the nickname “Swamp Fox” due to how he handled himself and his men in and around the swampy woods fighting the British in South Carolina (Think the guy who was crushing the British using guerilla warfare in the revolutionary war).
The second flyover I performed was a joint flyover with a Tennessee Air National Guard KC-135 over both Nashville and Knoxville on the same day, commemorating the 100-year anniversary of aerial refueling (refueling planes mid-flight without landing). We flew down downtown at a precise time then came back to Knoxville to pass over the University of Tennessee’s football stadium!
Faw: Do pilots consider flyovers like a bucket list item, or do they get done more than we realize?
Bartoletta: Depends on the pilot or the event! Some pilots don’t get crazy about them. Some people want to take a jet back to their alma mater and perform a flyover before a football game (which sounds amazing), and some people just want to fly and do something cool.
Personally, I love the flyovers because I remember seeing them while growing up and thinking that was the most ‘rad thing and I wanted to be like them, so I hope I can pass that influence to the next generation. A nascar flyover was definitely a bucket list item for me
Faw: How are pilots chosen for flyovers?
Bartoletta: The only way I’ve seen it is volunteer basis, usually first come first serve and I pounce on cool opportunities when I can.
Faw: What is the process leading up to a flyover? What training is involved?
Bartoletta: After all the behind-the-scenes paperwork to legally have us flying over an event and coordination with NASCAR or whoever is running the event, usually a ground crew (a single pilot or more) will go to the area and get to an observation position. They have radios on them to communicate with the jets airborne.
Ahead of time, we have a precise TOT (time over target) of when we should be there, down to the second. How we plan is by starting at the target and time and work backwards, so we know when we’ll get to our holding place, when we will take off that day, when we taxi, when we brief with all the agencies and our controlling pilot, so on and so forth.
For example, at Darlington, we were told by NASCAR that our TOT was 6:03pm + 5 seconds.
We don’t have any official training that teaches us how to do these, but it’s using some skills that we already know. Many times we plan, fly, and execute flights with extremely precise TOT’s in environments that are very dynamic battle spaces, targets could move, times could change on us and what we planned on could become irrelevant fast. Our flights usually though are in training airspaces away from civilization and not as exciting or observable. Having a static target and timing definitely simplifies things.
At the end of the day, it is incredible training to do this NASCAR flyover, and is just more than just taxpayer dollars to make some freedom noise and very thankful the crowd was receptive to good timing.
Faw: Race Car drivers use simulation to prepare for races. Is the same done for the Air Force? How do you nail the timing?
Bartoletta: Yes! Our simulators are phenomenal. Starting out, you have a crawl-walk-run approach in training. You’ll get academics on a specific mission, weapon, or sensor on the jet. Then you’ll go to a simulator and practice the switches, the flying. Finally, you’ll take it out to a jet and fly it for real.
Any time you’re in the jet it isn’t the first time you would have necessarily done something, and the nice part is when you get to the jet, you definitely have a good idea of what to do. Lots of practice in simulators though, they are great for practicing emergencies or trying new things.
I love that simulators are catching on in the motorsports world. I know Max Verstappen in F1 is very heavy into simulators and looks like it pays off and I would love to see what their simulators are like.
How do we nail timing? There are some techniques when it comes to holding away somewhere before pushing at the correct time to be on target at the precise time, but the jet has an option if you input the exact time of when you want to be at a certain point, it’ll tell you exactly how fast or slow you get there!
Using the jet’s timer is not the end-all-be-all though. How we did it was we held in our own race track 10-15 miles west of the field and waited. When we were at the correct time to go we pointed east towards the Darlington racetrack, then used the jet’s calculations to update our speed to nail the timing.
Behind the Scenes
Faw: When you are in the air does it fly by quickly or does time seem to slow down so you can enjoy the experience? Fans only see you for a couple of seconds. Does it feel the same for you?
Bartoletta: Speaking from my perspective (I was the #2 pilot, not the lead), once we were headed towards the track and I closed in on my lead’s wing to 10 feet away, you really shut off your brain and solely focus on being in a good position.
Birds, helicopters, and turbulence aside, it feels like things happen so slowly in the moment. But you’re making hundreds of micro-adjustments on your throttle and position to be as perfect as possible. I was only focusing on the shiny metal object and not hitting it (my lead’s aircraft), while he was focusing on the navigation, the radios, and the timing.
That being said, physically being over the stadium I knew it went by extremely fast. When we passed overhead and pushed up the throttle to the afterburner for maximum noise, our controller who was on the radio with us keyed his microphone so we could hear our jet noise and people cheering! It was very surreal and awesome!
Faw: Everyone obviously wants to know what the view is like! Can you see fans?
Bartoletta: You definitely could see everyone! It happens so fast you don’t have time to process everything, maybe seeing Christopher Bell’s #20 car on pole. I knew where my dad and sister were sitting right behind start/finish but I was locked in looking at my lead and being in perfect position, so I had a nice front-row view of the flyover itself!
Faw: What are the perks of doing a flyover? Are you a VIP for the race? Do you get to come to the track and have the fan experience?
Bartoletta: Depends on the event! I showed up after a grueling 1hr 30-minute drive to get to the track at lap 170. I got access to go through the tunnel to the infield and had an essential pit pass ready for me.
Craziest thing ever to pull up to a race and have no roadblocks getting to a perfect parking spot. I got to meet quite a few fans on the pit wall and tried my best to stay out of the way of the pit crews working. Those dudes are working incredibly hard and are in their element doing everything in their power and job to win.
Faw: Are you a race fan? And, if so, do you have a favorite driver or team?
A: Big race fan! My favorites are Joey Logano and his iconic yellow No. 22 Pennzoil-Shell Ford. And Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 Jordan branded cars. I wish I could have met them after the race! Shoutouts to those guys!
Faw: What is next for you? Any more flyovers in your future possibly?
A: I left the race early because I deployed downrange to the Middle East the day after the NASCAR race. It was a nice send-off to do something with my immediate family and work friends before I go.
I would love to do more flyovers! Next on the bucket list is a football game but, beggars can’t be choosers! If it’s an opportunity to go fly the world’s most amazing jet I will not deny another chance.
Growing up near Daytona and seeing the USAF Thunderbirds do their flyovers there, it’s on my bucket list to join that amazing organization to do more events and flyovers. Influencing the next generation of pilots the same way I got inspired!
I always love the flyovers and this is a great behind the scenes story. Thank you