If you were the sort of fan who studies Super Bowl flyover patches like they're baseball cards, you might have spotted the oddity before anyone else.
The commemorative patch for Super Bowl LX includes the sleek outline of an F‑22 Raptor—America's premier air‑superiority fighter. Yet when the jets roar over Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara this Sunday, the Raptors won't be there. The silhouette, it turns out, is not a design error. It's a reminder of a blunt military truth: the show is optional, the mission is not.
Katie Spencer, the Department of the Air Force's Sports Outreach Program manager and a planner for the flyover, told Military Times that the original plan did include 'a pair of F‑22s' to showcase fifth-generation aircraft from both services. 'But as things happen in our military, you know, operational tempo has increased, and so the F‑22s got pulled for some operational assignments,' she said.
No drama, no scandal—just priorities.
F-22 Raptor Super Bowl Pullout Shows The Pentagon's Real Calendar
Spencer did not specify what the 'operational assignments' were, and it would be irresponsible to pretend otherwise. But Military Times pointed to a recent context: F‑22s played 'a key role' in Operation Midnight Hammer in June, described as a B‑2 Spirit bomber‑led strike campaign on Iranian nuclear facilities. In January and early February, the report added, US aircraft also carried out strikes on ISIS sites in Syria in a mission dubbed Operation Hawkeye Strike.
Even if you know nothing about airpower, the takeaway is obvious. The Raptor is not a novelty jet rolled out for photo ops. It's a finite resource, and if commanders want it somewhere else, the NFL doesn't get a vote.
And yet the flyover is still happening—bigger than usual, in fact, and pointedly joint.
F-22 Raptor Absence, But A Bigger Joint Flyover
The final formation will feature eight aircraft: two Air Force B‑1B Lancers from Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota; two F‑15C Eagles from the Fresno Air National Guard Base in California; and, from the Navy, two F/A‑18E Super Hornets and two F‑35C Lightning IIs from Naval Air Station Lemoore in California. The Air Force and Navy have described it as a joint flyover marking America's 250th birthday, and an official Air Force news release confirmed it will take place on 8 February 2026 at Levi's Stadium.
Spencer told Military Times that the F‑15s were brought in late to complete the formation, and she praised the Guard for stepping in. She also leaned into the symbolism: bombers up front for the 'time over target' effect, and a mix of legacy and fifth-generation fighters for maximum spectacle—'the coolest formation', and 'the loudest'.
It's hard not to hear the sales pitch there, but Spencer also made a point the Pentagon repeats every year: the flyover is training. 'These flyovers serve as time-over-target training for our crews,' she said, adding that they also support 'recovery efforts with our maintainers'. Crucially, she said it doesn't require additional taxpayer funding.
That line is doing political work, because flyovers have long attracted a specific kind of criticism: "Why spend money on jets for a football game?" The answer, at least officially, is that the jets are going to fly anyway, and the stadium becomes a moving target for crews who have to hit a precise time and location.
There's another detail that makes this year's flyover possible: the venue. Because Levi's Stadium isn't a dome, planners can use a larger formation than they might elsewhere.
So, no F‑22s. The patch stays as a little ghost of an earlier plan. What fans will get instead is a deliberately choreographed reminder that America's airpower is both theatre and tool—capable of showmanship, yes, but ultimately governed by a harsher schedule than any broadcast window.
Originally published on IBTimes UK
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