Super Bowl LVII flyover has a Windsor connection, but if you blink you might miss it

Cruising over a stadium at 345 mph doesn't take long, so don't blink or you might miss Windsor's short but exciting connection to Sunday's Super Bowl LVII.

Sporting event flyovers with the power and roar of jets screaming above the stadium before kickoff get fans pumped.

At this year's Super Bowl, there is another reason why you will want to pull yourself away from the queso dip and in front of your TV screen when the national anthem is sung before the 4:30 p.m. MST kickoff: The lead pilot at the front of the diamond-shape, four-jet flyover will be Lt. Arielle Ash, wife of Brett Ash, a Windsor native who is also a jet fighter pilot.

The end of country singer Chris Stapleton's rendition of the national anthem is the cue for the all-woman pilot flyover, which will commemorate 50 years of women flying in the U.S. Navy.

Arielle Ash said countless hours of training takes some of the edge off flying before 100 million TV viewers in the U.S., but all those eyes do generate some nerves.

"We do lots of training where we arrive at a target at a certain time and that training translates to our flyover at the Super Bowl," the 33-year-old said. "I will have nervous excitement with the flyover, but I don’t question us executing the mission."

Arielle, a flight instructor and member of the Flying Eagles of Strike Fighter Squadron based at Naval Air Station Lemoore in Hanford, California, and another member of her squadron will be flying F-18s. They will be joined by an EA-18 Growler and F-35.

She said the crew will station at Luke Air Force Base, which is 7 minutes west of Glendale, Arizona, where the Super Bowl is taking place. She said about an hour or more before the flyover, the team will take off and work on making sure communication with its ground crew is working properly and coordinating with Super Bowl officials.

Arielle said the crew will fly around north of the stadium waiting for its cue. Once they get the go-ahead, she said it will take 4 minutes flying at 345 mph (F-18s can fly up to 1,190 mph) to reach the stadium.

The team will fly 1,000 feet above State Farm Stadium, and then land back at Luke Air Force Base before taking a short surface ride to the stadium.

The average Super Bowl ticket price five days before the game is near $9,000, making it the second-most expensive ticket in Super Bowl history. But the pilots will see the game for free.

"We do get into the game,'' Arielle said. "I don't know the specifics, but I think they may introduce us on the field at some point."

Brett, 33, is a 2008 graduate of Windsor High School. He's now a captain in the Marine Corps and flight instructor. The two met in flight school and for the first time in their more than three years of marriage are stationed at the same naval base in Hanford, California.

He said he will have to watch the Super Bowl from home but is excited to see his wife get this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"It's kind of surreal seeing her be able to do this," Brett said. "She has done a flyover for a football game at Texas Tech, where she went to college, but this is much bigger. We are so used to flying jets every day at work, but seeing her on national TV will be exciting."

Brett's father, Sean, flew F-18s in the Marine Corps and now is a United Airlines pilot. One of his brothers, Andrew, is in the Navy and works on drones. His other brother, Tyler, is in the Marines where he flies an Osprey.

Brett said his father and mother, Janet, who still live in Windsor, are even more excited about the flyover than he and Arielle.

"It's pretty cool to have parents that have always been supportive of us and what we do, and they are really excited for Arielle to have this opportunity," Brett said. "My dad likes to hear our stories from whatever flights we did that day because he can relate.''

Of all those stories swapped, Sunday's flight will surely keep coming up in conversations.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Super Bowl LVII flyover has Colorado connection you won't want to miss