On Sunday, an extensive list of cities across the country was posted to social media with claims that it was a schedule for a number of flyovers to be conducted between April 23rd and May 2nd. The supposed plan would see the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels join forces for a mass flyover of East Coast cities like New York City and Washington, DC before splitting up to cover different sections of the country. The Thunderbirds would take the Western US while the Blue Angels cover the Midwest. They would again meet in Texas for a day of joint flyovers to close the program.

This all seemed pretty far-fetched. A nation-wide campaign like this would take immense planning and resources, and would certainly require some travel in a time when travel is to be minimized.

However, evidence is growing that the list of flyovers may in fact be a real plan. On Monday afternoon aviation spotters heard Thunderbird 1 check in with the air traffic control tower at NAS Pensacola with 8 other aircraft in his formation. Other spotters posted videos of the jets landing at the base. A local photographer, Laura Bogan, snapped pictures of all 9 jets flying over the area before landing.

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For now, the teams are not confirming anything publicly and have made no comments on why the Thunderbirds have dropped in to Pensacola. We reached out to the teams for comment Sunday evening. As of Monday afternoon, we have not received a response. It is likely that they are remaining quiet while final details are worked out, and it is also possible that they will keep plans under wraps until the last minute to discourage any long-distance travel.

The original post was deleted shortly after appearing and no further details have leaked. It is evident that something big is brewing; the teams spending any time together is a fairly rare and special event and they already spent time together earlier this year. This does not have the feeling of a normal “joint training” session.