THE SUPER BOWL’S JETS, DRONES, AND RADIATION-SEEKING HELICOPTERS Sunday night’s Thunderbirds flyover and the (pre-recorded, on January 31st) swarm of 300 glowing drones above a rooftopping Lady Gaga were only the flashiest aerial visitors to NRG’s 10 miles of mostly-no-fly airspace as part of the Super Bowl process — the National Nuclear Security Administration’s helicopters were also on the scene early last week, taking measurements of ambient background radiation levels around the stadium and elsewhere around town (as captured in the above video of a low Uptown flyby). The deployment of the choppers to aid in dirty bomb watching at major events is becoming more common — the NNSA did the same kind of thing at last year’s Super Bowl in Santa Clara, and Houston got a federal grant last summer to beef up its general radiation-seeking chops. Video of radiation monitoring flight along San Felipe St.: mytubenot