Westover C-5 soars over thousands at Patriots playoff game

  • Published
  • By MSgt. Andrew Biscoe
  • 439th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. --  A Patriot Wing aircrew helped the New England Patriots get off to a roaring start as a capacity crowd of 68,756 watched a C-5 perform a flyby Jan. 22 over Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.

Millions more people who tuned in to watch the American Football Conference playoff game between the Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens saw the massive airlifter approach the stadium, then bank slowly as it departed the area.

Just after Aerosmith's Steven Tyler sang the final notes of the National Anthem, the C-5 flew over the cheering crowd, and elicited glances skyward from Tyler, Patriot quarterback Tom Brady and tight end Rob Gronkowski, all on national television.

"I've always wanted to do this," said Lt. Col. Gary Cooke, a C-5 pilot with 7,500 hours of flying experience. "I knew this went well as we flew by. The timing was really cool...it was an adrenaline rush."

Lt. Col. Cooke and Lt. Col. Michael Davis, aircraft commander, circled over nearby Walpole, Mass., minutes before the game began. The flyby comprised part of a local training mission that took the crew over Vermont and New Hampshire first. Capt. Matthew Podkowka was the third pilot on board.

"We came in at 242 knots and at 1,058 feet," Lt. Col. Cooke said, adding the landmark stadium's huge jumbotron TV screen helped guide them to their flyover centerpoint. "We could see the jumbotron as (Aerosmith lead singer) Steven Tyler was singing the National Anthem."

Meanwhile, MSgt. Eric McGlynn, 337th Airlift Squadron flight engineer, was on the ground as a spotter -- inside Gillette Stadium. He was positioned on the south side of the stadium by one of the towering jumbotrons.

"Eric had a radio so we could hear Tyler singing," Lt. Col. Cooke said.

When the singer got started about 15 seconds later than expected, the crew had to react quickly - in the name of timing.

"We had to do a 360 and come around again," Lt. Col. Davis said.

Then, as videos and photos have shown since, the curtain went up for Westover's Patriot Wing, as the jumbo airlifter filled the entire giant screen of the jumbotron. The bewildered but thrilled crowd, shouting exclamations, cheered loudly and nearly drowned out Tyler's last words of the anthem.

"Look at this thing!" a man shouted. "C-5 Galaxy! The US military's biggest plane!" another shouted, as the the surging sound of thousands of people cheering drowned out any remaining audible words.

Much like when hometown crowds cheer so loud in trying to confuse the visiting team, the Gillette crowd's volume nearly eclipsed the spooling TF-39 engines of the C-5 as it passed overhead from north to south.

"We had max power on the engines," Lt. Col. Cooke said, adding he and Lt. Col. Davis banked the aircraft to exit the air traffic area, often busy with airliners going in and out of Logan Airport.

There was talk long after the flyover that no one would forget this any time soon.

"This flight becomes more special as time goes on," Lt. Col. Davis said. "I won't forget it and would stand in front of a 100 cameras to do it again."

The Patriots beat the Ravens, 23-20, to advance to the Super Bowl.

The other crew members were:
CMSgt. Anthony Colucci, instructor flight engineer
SMSgt. Daniel Giddinge, instructor loadmaster
MSgt. Michael Dunn, loadmaster
TSgt. Michael Blount, loadmaster
TSgt. Daniel Wolde-Giorgis, flight engineer
SrA. Ryan Manning, flight engineer