>
>... but only tattered strips of cloth hung from them, all that
>remained of the WDF, Academy Command, Zetan, and Salusian flags that
>once proudly caught the wind.

Wow. Reading this makes me feel....shoot, I can't imagine my alma mater looking like this. I'm trying to picture Spirit Hill, Mitch's and A-Hall jacked up. It's chilling.

>
>Now in classic finger-four formation, the fighters flew for several
>more minutes on their originally planned final pass over the WDF
>Academy grounds. At the moment when they flew over the Academy's
>administration building and front review ground, Maia abruptly pulled
>back on the stick and punched her throttles to full thrust. Her Alpha
>leapt upward like a cannon shot, peeling smoothly away from the
>formation, cracking the sound barrier within moments, and vanishing
>into the scattered clouds above.
>
>The other three fighters - the J-model Valkyrie in the lead, the
>Seeker Valkyrie to its left, and the Beta two spaces down to the right
>- flew onward, maintaining their broken formation until the grounds of
>the WDF Academy vanished below the horizon behind them.
>

A Missing Man Formation. Well done.

For solemn events, like memorials or some such, we'd quietly whisper the 3rd verse of the Air Force Song (the one that begins with "Here's a toast...") with bowed heads. You've captured that sense of solemnity.

Well done.