Calabretta ’10 among ground support pilots for Super Bowl flyover

Lt. Cmdr. Justin Calabretta '10 will be among the pilots providing ground support for Super Bowl LVII's flyover of U.S. Navy aircraft.

A Texas A&M engineering technology graduate who was in the Corps of Cadets' Company N-1, Calabretta has taken part in two Texas A&M flyovers at football games: in October 2021, flying an F-35C, and September 2018, flying an F/A-18.

For the Super Bowl on Feb. 12, Calabretta's squadron (Attack Squadron 147, based in California at Naval Air Station Lemoore) will send two F-35C jets. One will fly over with other Navy aircraft before the game kicks off Feb. 12 at 5:30 p.m. Central.

Flyovers would not be possible without pilots providing ground support for timing and precision, said Attack Squadron 147 spokeswoman Ensign Sarah Sires. 

Calabretta's first name (Charles) and his callsign ("MIRICYL Baby") have appeared in some Super Bowl publicity.

Asked about the unusual callsign, Sires said, "In the words of LCDR Calabretta himself: 'Traditionally Navy callsigns are given to pilots by their fellow junior officers and are normally created in jest about something that they’ve done or that has happened to them in flight or off-duty, they keep us humble, and mine is no exception. After the first port call of my first deployment in 2016, I boarded the ship having lost all of my credit cards out of my wallet and my phone, accompanied with about $1800 of fraudulent charges. Since I didn’t have a phone, I was forced to use an online messaging app to ask my wife to cancel the credit cards, all on Valentine's Day. To poke fun at my plight during that port call, my fellow pilots gave me the callsign “Makin’ it rain, I’ll call you later baby”, or MIRICYL Baby (pronounced ‘Miracle Baby’).'"