Saturday morning before the Iron Bowl, helicopters were flown in to dry the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. It was a pretty cool sight, seeing them casually fly into the stadium, nearly touching down, simply drying the field.
Alabama dried their field with helicopters, but they aren’t pioneers for it
Drying sport fields with helicopters is a common tactic, and a cool one.
First, there was a single helicopter going to work:
Then, another was flown in to maximize winds generated by the propellers:
According to Alabama’s Director of Athletics Greg Byrne, the helicopters were donated.
A lot of people were amazed with this tactic. For starters, because it’s a good idea that you just may have never considered. Helicopters obviously have to generate high speeds with their blades to get in the air in the first place, which creates a ton of wind.
And with this being Alabama, it was also heralded online as a new tactic that the Tide invented, since they do everything better than everybody. However, that’s not the case.
A quick Google search will reveal to you that this has been done across sports for a while now. The Los Angeles Angels used this method in 2015, the Durham Bulls did it in 2016, and it’s been done quite a few times in 2018, including for the Big Ten softball tournament in May.
Here’s one from 2011, even:
So yes, Alabama is smart for drying their field with a couple of helicopters. But it’s not another Nick Saban Being Ahead Of Everybody thing.
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