{"id":263674,"date":"2026-05-08T17:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/263674\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:03:09","slug":"pilots-practice-stunts-ahead-of-air-dot-show-fort-lauderdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/263674\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilots practice stunts ahead of Air Dot Show Fort Lauderdale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0May 8, 2026 at 12:45 PM<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.  \u2014 U.S. Navy Cmdr. Clifton Helterbran was at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport on Friday to prepare for the Air Dot Show Fort Lauderdale. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Helterbran, better known as \u201cMarv,\u201d is a member of the Strike Fighter Squadron 122, or VFA-122, also known as the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.airpac.navy.mil\/Organization\/Strike-Fighter-Squadron-VFA-122\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.airpac.navy.mil\/Organization\/Strike-Fighter-Squadron-VFA-122\/\">Flying Eagles<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe challenge we have out here is just the airspace,\u201d Helterbran said. \u201cThe fact that the major airfield around here are still active, so the safety brief this morning, we got a nice talk as far as how to keep ourselves safe.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">There were also military pilots flying demonstrations of the Boeing F\/A-18E\/F Super Hornet, the Thunderbirds, and the F-22 Raptor. Helterbran safety is the priority. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThings come up, nothing ever really goes as planned, as we all kind of know in life, so the biggest challenge is going to be dealing with the punches,\u201d Helterbran said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 2026 Air Dot Show in Fort Lauderdale performances, which also include the U.S. Special Operations Command\u2019s Para-Commandos and the RedBull helicopter, are from 11:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Useful links<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Magdala Louissaint\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/author-service-images-prod-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/37f8699f-d0f0-420f-8dfa-.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Magdala Louissaint<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Magdala Louissaint joined WPLG in August 2025 and is thrilled to call South Florida home. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Andrea Torres\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/83a8effa-fc87-4940-96.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Andrea Torres<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0May 8, 2026 at 12:45 PM FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 U.S. Navy Cmdr. Clifton Helterbran was at Fort&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-263674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}