Blimps and Banners : Aerial Ballet a Sideshow to Super Bowl

To be sure, flashy Denver Broncos Quarterback John Elway and the Washington Redskins’ dependable Doug Williams will display their aerial skills on Super Bowl Sunday.

But a second show will be taking place in the sky far above those earthbound performers. There, an air armada of jets, blimps, banner-towing airplanes and helicopters will perform a carefully orchestrated aerial circus, with dozens of aircraft jockeying for space in the air above and around the stadium.

During a typical sold-out Chargers day game with the Los Angeles Raiders, the skies over San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium might be shared by a handful of banner-towing airplanes, a few helicopters and maybe a blimp.

But the Super Bowl, which magnifies even the relatively mundane, will attract aviation traffic in the same way that a candle draws moths.

If the game gets boring, about 74,000 spectators--and San Diegans who live close to the airspace near the stadium--will be able to watch an overhead ballet that is scheduled to include:

The Navy’s Blue Angels flight team, which is expected to blow in for a quick fly-by just before kickoff.

Thirteen banner-towing aircraft advertising everything from cars and bars to beer and movies will take to the air on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday.

Fans with tickets who don’t want to battle traffic to and from the stadium can catch a ride on five helicopters that will provide shuttle service to a makeshift landing pad at the stadium’s practice field. Several more helicopters will provide aerial platforms for television and newspaper cameras and the National Football League. And, local law enforcement helicopters also will be flying on game day. Fifteen copters are registered with the Federal Aviation Administration as of Sunday.

At least three blimps--those owned or leased by Fuji, Goodyear and Slice--will be circling high above the stadium.

To keep things safe, each type of aircraft will fly at a different level. And the FAA will be acting as ringmaster for that three-level flying circus.

Controlled by Montgomery Field

The air traffic control staff at Montgomery Field will be beefed up on game day and a handful of controllers also will work out of a mobile office at the stadium. The FAA will “actively control” aircraft in the air space above the stadium to guard against accidents, according to Jack McGrory, deputy city manager of San Diego.

Air traffic controllers at Montgomery Field are responsible for the air space surrounding the stadium because it sits beneath one of the airport’s two approach patterns. The approach closest to the stadium will be closed during the game to ease traffic in the area.

Blimps, banner-towers and helicopters will fly at different altitudes, under directive from the FAA. And, only the blimps--including one that will carry ABC’s television cameras--will fly directly over the stadium.

Banner towers and helicopters will be prohibited from flying over the stadium or the parking lot. Pilots who failed to meet last week’s application deadline will be prohibited from entering air space near the stadium on Sunday.

Banner-tow pilots and the FAA have agreed to limit to four the number of banners that fans can see from the stadium at any one time. Pilots awaiting their 20 minutes in the spotlight will be kept in holding patterns to the east and west of the stadium.

Banners in Tow

The Super Bowl kickoff won’t occur until 3 p.m., but air activity will start to pick up in mid-morning, when banner-towing aircraft will take off from Brown Field, Gillespie Field in El Cajon and Palomar Airport in Carlsbad.

Fans in the stands should have no trouble reading the signs, according to Duke Prichard, owner of Brown Field-based Aerial Communications of America.

Banner towers will be operating in the air around the stadium from mid-morning on, but will be back on the ground before the sun begins to set, Prichard said.

According to banner towing firms, the NFL, which takes a dim view of unlicensed attempts at making money off its game, unsuccessfully tried to keep pilots from towing banners near the stadium.

When city officials, the football association, pilots and the FAA first met nearly a year ago to discuss aviation matters related to the Super Bowl, the NFL representative wanted to know “what the league’s percentage is,” according to W.G. Holland, owner of Air Ads, a Brown Field-based banner towing company.

“We said ‘zero, because it’s not your air space, partner,’ ” according to a San Diego pilot who attended the meeting.

“Maybe the NFL should try to shut off the radios so people can’t hear ads on the way to the game, or cover up the billboards near the stadium,” suggested Wayne Mansfield, who owns Boston-based National Aerial Advertising, one of the nation’s largest banner-towing firms.

The noise created by banner towers does irritate home owners under their flight paths, but the FAA, which has had no problems with banner-towers during dozens of Chargers and Padres games, agreed to let pilots fly.

Shuttle for the Affluent

FAA controllers also will be dealing with Burbank-based CineExec, which will use five helicopters to shuttle well-to-do fans to a makeshift helipad at the stadium from various air fields and the Hotel Del Coronado. Fees will range from $75 to $100 for a one-way trip, according to a company spokesman.

At least one local company has leased a helicopter to the NFL, which wants an aerial platform to record the big game. And, local and national law enforcement agencies are using both their own and leased helicopters to provide security on the day of the game.

The air armada that is expected to appear in the skies on Super Bowl Sunday would be grounded if it rains--or if President Ronald Reagan or Vice President George Bush decide to attend the game. If either official does show up, FAA regulations would mandate the suspension of air traffic near the stadium.

Stadium officials at at least one other stadium in California successfully petitioned the FAA to make it more difficult for banner-towers to fly near their stadium. Several years ago, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena asked the FAA to keep banner-towing aircraft at least 2,500 feet above the ground. There, and in San Diego, pilots are prohibited from flying directly over the stadium.

Even banners with large letters are difficult to read at that height, according to a San Diego-based banner tower. But the Rose Bowl views the added height as a safety measure: “If they did have a problem or an engine failure they could glide to another safe area rather than fall into our Rose Bowl,” the spokesman said.

Banner-towing aircraft on Super Bowl Sunday in San Diego will be flying at least 1,400 feet above the stadium, while blimps will be up even higher. Helicopters will be flying at another altitude.

A Risky Business

Banner-towing is a potentially risky business, according to Terry Natschke, who on Nov. 22 crash-landed his aircraft in the ocean off San Diego after its engine quit.

“It wasn’t my most pleasant experience,” Natschke said recently. “The only real option I had was the ocean.”

Holland, who acknowledged that “if you fly long enough you’re going to have an accident,” said that the flying pattern around the stadium gives pilots ample opportunities for emergency landings. And, Natschke suggested that pilots “just wouldn’t let an airplane loose so that it would crash into the city.”

Not just any pilot, nor just any airplane, can tow a banner.

Pilots must have a commercial license and a minimum amount of flying time and classroom work, Holland said. Aircraft are typically higher-powered machines that can haul banners of up to 200 feet in length--in addition to a tow rope that can be hundreds of feet long.

Banner towers sometimes fly with controversial messages. Holland once drew media attention when he towed a banner bearing an anti-homosexual message above a San Diego Gay Rights parade.

In 1982, Mansfield flew banners in Nigeria during a national election. The candidate who hired Mansfield won, but the man “ended up getting more votes than Nigeria has citizens and there eventually was a coup,” Mansfield said.

Mansfield, who has hired two Los Angeles pilots to tow banners during the Super Bowl, believes banner advertising is increasing. “We’ve got 15 airplanes in the Northeast, and a network of 150 airplanes available around the country,” Mansfield said. “We’ve increased our business by being aggressive, but there’s also more interest in unique banners and billboards.”

Advertising agencies “love banners because you can do fun things with them,” according to Peter Riordon, a New York-based vice president with the advertising firm of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. “During 1987 we bought banner tows for several clients.”

One flying advertisement--billed as the world’s largest banner--spent the past summer cruising up and down the East Coast from Ocean City, Md., to New Hampshire.

“On any given summer day, if it’s hot enough and sunny enough, there’s going to be 11 million people out there,” Riordon said. “We couldn’t reach those people with our normal advertising because you don’t have newspapers, magazines and billboards at the beach,” Riordon said.

Flying advertisements at sports events have gained in popularity because they cost less than conventional advertising. It costs several hundred thousand dollars to lease a blimp--as McDonald’s, Sea World, Seagram’s, Fuji and other companies have done in recent years--and it is getting more expensive to advertise on stadium billboards, Riordon said.

Banner towers said they would charge as little as $200 and as much as $1,700 to fly banners before and during the game on Sunday.

“That’s still pretty much of a bargain when you look at other kinds of advertising,” Holland of Air Ads said.