The stadium was a mile below as Wheels and I stepped into
the night air and dropped away from the Cessna 182. We both had smoke canisters
and streamers, and I had a football strapped to my rig. Slyde and Kivett were already 1,000 feet
below us, their parachutes deployed and towing American and Indiana flags.
The plan was for Kivett and Slyde to glide their banners
toward the high school football field as the National Anthem played across the
crowd. Wheels and I would deploy 500
feet above the flags, pulling the pins on our smoke canisters and dropping them
below us on a length of paracord. Then we’d
each unfurl a 50-foot Mylar streamer and commence an artful spiral around the
flags as the four of us all came in to land just as (if we timed it right) the
crowd sang along with “… O'er the la-and of the freeee, and the home… of the…
braave.”
