The veterans behind the flyovers at local football games

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Friday, August 17, 2018

You see the planes at local sporting events, but do you know who flies them?

A group of 12 retired veterans is behind those flyovers.

"Our motto is, we fly for the flag," Andy Stanasky told ABC11. "We come over events, like we do all the NC State football games, we fly over right at the end of the national anthem."

"We have a lot of rules, that define where we're gonna fly, how high we're gonna fly, positions and so forth," said Paul Franzon. "If you follow those rules you'll stay safe but it takes a lot of coordination to deal with the dynamics of that formation."

"There's 12 of us," added Sam Huffstetler. "We train regularly, we train intensely, we're safe- we've been doing this 12 years now without any untoward incidents."

"It's cool. It's really cool," said Hal Bowman. "It's a lot of fun. It's the thing you look forward to. It's fun to get up and fly."

The Bandit Fly Team, based out of Sanford, does about 40 flyovers per year.

This football season, they'll fly over the Army-Duke game and all of the home NC State football games.