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.

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.

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.