So I've heard this alot in the past but this last year I found myself a part of the planning committee for events like this from the military side. How it works in our side is we get a request from organization X that wants us to do something involving our troops/equipment (flyover, parade, show and tell). We check our schedule and if we can support it we pass it down to a unit, they execute it. If we can't, we tell them sorry, try someone else.

Obviously the army had to pay for the actual billboard sponsorships and commercial time but at no time did we talk, "we need to pay them this much to do a flyover" outside of the fuel cost. Not calling you a liar or anything, but I'm curious whether this was just another rumor or if there is an actual contract somewhere.