NAS Oceana jets to do flyover at Military Bowl
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Two pilots who are graduates of the two teams taking part in Wednesday’s Military Bowl will man the F/A-18 Hornets based at Naval Air Station Oceana that will be flying over Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.
One of the planes will be piloted by 2006 Tulane graduate Adam Stephens, while 2002 Virginia Tech graduate Elliott Shoup will be piloting the other plane. After the flyover, the two will head to Joint Base Andrews before heading back to the stadium to watch their alma maters in the bowl game.
“When I heard Tulane was going to play in the game, I immediately started thinking we should do a flyover,” said Stephens, who is the commanding officer of the VFC-12 Ambush U.S. Navy reserves F/A-18 squadron based out of NAS Oceana. Shoup is second in command.
The two pilots have a friendly wager on the game, with the loser to buy a bottle of rye for the winner.
The Military Bowl is at 2 p.m. on ESPN. The bowl game benefits Patriot Point, the Military Bowl Foundation’s 294-acre retreat for wounded sick and injured active-duty and veteran service members, their families and caregivers.
“It was a no-brainer to try to do it,” Shoup said. “Adam has been a loud proponent of Tulane for as long as I’ve known him, but normally he’s in his own [American Athletic Conference] circle. We don’t have the opportunity to play each other very often.”
Both have done flyovers for other games — Stephens did one at an LSU football game in 2018 and last year before the 2022 American Athletic Conference championship at Tulane, where Shoup joined him as part of the ground crew.
Shoup has performed the flyover before a Virginia Tech and NASCAR game, as well as “one for that other Virginia team.”
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