49 Ship formation fly-by

[Beefitarian]

Colonel, I see you're sort of busy but...

Would you take a moment to briefly explain how the top guy from that movie ran into the other plane. I don't get it? Since I'm no longer a pilot and never intentionally got that close to any other planes in flight. Looks like throttle and back pressure should have been employed. I guess he might have been busy arguing on the Internet.


Buddy crashing the plane in the video, you a member here? Probably on pprune.

[Colonel Sanders]

briefly explain how the top guy from that movie ran into the other plane

There are pilots here with much more experience at
that sort of thing than me but ....

If they were sane, one aircraft was assigned as lead
and the other aircraft was assigned as wing.

I am guessing that the upper plane (where camera
was inside) was the lead aircraft, and the aircraft below
it was wing, and lost sight of the lead.

The lead pilot had no idea that there was a problem,
otherwise he would have climbed. He was carrying out
his responsibilities.

The wing pilot f__ked up. He lost sight of the lead, and
DID NOT COMMUNICATE IT TO THE LEAD AS IS ALWAYS
BRIEFED. And, he did not take appropriate action to
separate from the lead and regain visual, which is NOT
TURNING but rather by descending. Two mistakes on
the part of the wing pilot.

Above is pure speculation and is based solely upon my
guess that the camera plane was lead.

One can summarize formation as follows:

1) Wing does not hit lead
2) Lead does not hit ground

They broke rule #1.

[Colonel Sanders]

With all due respect to the egalitarian formation pilots here ....

One does NOT separate (or avoid a collision) by turning.
That merely increases the probability of a collision by
increasing your cross-section, and roll takes a while to
take effect.

Many years ago, Freddy Cabanas, Gary Ward and me
were doing an airshow at Oswego, NY and Gary tried
to kill me.

Gary was in the lead with his G202. Freddy was in right
wing in his Pitts. I was in the left wing in my Pitts, and
I made the radio call: "in position" for the briefed vic.
Very pretty.

Well, Gary didn't see or hear me, and made one of those
"quick" turns the monoplane guys are so proud of. In
my direction.

I was in close. Freddy said afterwards that he thought I
was dead. Remember we were all carrying pax in the
front seat, for the media flight.

When I started to see the top of Gary's airplane, in less
than an tenth of a second I had the stick forward and put
what most people would think was an awful lot of negative
G on, and I watched Gary go overhead.

Things go wrong in formation, despite what the egalitarian
formation pilots will tell you. And unless you have lots of
CPU left over to handle it, you will die. Sorry if that fact
hurts people's feelings

Gary was shaking afterwards. A great pilot. Had a surface
SAC card. But no formation endorsement like Freddy and I.
He got one, years later. It is very difficult to get a formation
endorsement on an SAC card. There is a reason why.

Gary is a great friend, and the best airshow pilot you have
never heard of. Here they are in Central America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYYrmazbH7E


Despite what an egalitarian formation pilot will tell you, I
am not elitist. I am a realist, and I respect the ICAS SAC
formation qualification, which is hard-earned over 10 years
for most capable pilots. Not on a weekend course.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The implication of the previous series of posts is that unless you have a formation endorsed SAC card you are not good enough to fly formation. I politely disagree.

The FAST program was a result of the FAA saying to all the warbird and type clubs. There has been a bunch of formation accidents. Sort it out or we will sort it for you.

Since the FAST program was introduced formation accidents has been greatly reduced and almost all accidents are by pilots who do not hold a valid FAST card.

Formation flying leaves very little room for error. If you are interested in trying it it is imperative that you get instruction from a competent instructor. Military QFI's are IMO the best folks to do this kind of training.

[Colonel Sanders]

unless you have a formation endorsed SAC card you are not good enough to fly formation

With all due respect to the wonderful spirit of egalitarianism,
I have painfully learned the lesson that I will not fly formation
with someone who does not hold an SAC card endorsed for
formation.

I might politely opine that I have been repeatedly underwhelmed
in the past by FAST card holders, whom I try to stay far away
from, in the interests of self-preservation.

Elitist? No. Realist? Yes. Before you do something really
dangerous, first get really good at it, because mistakes can
easily be fatal.

This is not too hard to understand. Two words: "Joe Walker".

[Beefitarian]

I did not even think the camera plane might have been the lead. That seems like a possible reason he was looking somewhere else. The whole thing is outside my comfort zone. I'd rather be the wing I guess, unless I knew and trusted the other guy enough to be able to not keep looking over to make sure he's in position.

[TG]

I am guessing that the upper plane (where camera
was inside) was the lead aircraft, and the aircraft below
it was wing, and lost sight of the lead.

The lead pilot had no idea that there was a problem,
otherwise he would have climbed. He was carrying out
his responsibilities.

The wing pilot f__ked up. He lost sight of the lead, and
DID NOT COMMUNICATE IT TO THE LEAD AS IS ALWAYS
BRIEFED. And, he did not take appropriate action to
separate from the lead and regain visual, which is NOT
TURNING but rather by descending. Two mistakes on
the part of the wing pilot.

Above is pure speculation and is based solely upon my
guess that the camera plane was lead.

I would venture to say that the upper plane was the wing not the leader.

-Initially positioned to the left side, so its jumpers could see the 'ready set go' from the other group of jumper in the lead aircraft.
-Performances sucks big time in single piston engine at max gross weight (if not above it) and around 10,000 feet.
If they were sane enough, the aircraft with the more performance would act as wing to have more play. It looks like it as the upper plane seems to be a C185 the other one, a 182.

Everything else probably happen exactly as you said.
Wing man didn't compensate for his closure rate, lost sight and didn't take appropriate evasive action.
They were very lucky.


I totally agree with Colonel Sanders, sh!t can happen very quickly in formation. It need a lot of discipline and understanding of who is doing what and when. The more training you can get, the better.
In Drop zones most of this stuff is self taught (and very scary sometime)

[Beefitarian]

I think I understand the thought process in trying to do something like that.

I'll just follow my friend. Looks simple enough.

I'm happy everyone involved was relatively unharmed.

[AuxBatOn]

Before you do something really dangerous, first get really good at it, because mistakes can easily be fatal.

How can you get really good at something before you actually do it? You can't. You need practice to become good. And you need training. Good training. Training for ex-Snowbirds, ex Moose Jaw QFIs, etc is probably the best you'll get in Canada for flying in formation. The amount of hours you have is not as relevant, in my opinion, as the initial training you had. It teaches you the basics and puts emphasis on a solid foundation to safely work you way into formation flying. And that's the key.

@#$! ups will happen. Regardless of the amount of hours, good people will get hurt or die. Sometimes too much experience can be bad. You may push yourself too much because you think your experience will keep you alive.

[Colonel Sanders]

You need practice to become good

I might humbly suggest that the way you do that,
is 2 ship. Each of you owns half of the universe.

Much more forgiving of mistakes.

My only beef with ex-mil pilots and IP's is that their
experience often does not transfer well to different,
civilian types. They have the religion but they are
often specialists, not adaptable generalists.

For example: take two snowbird jocks and give
them a clip-wing Harvard and a Beech 18 for a
photo flight. No checkouts or anything, just
point them at the airplanes. How well is that
going to work out?

[Schooner69A]

C.S. messaged: "...and made one of those 'quick' turns..."

Yup; it can happen in the best of families! Many years ago on another continent, a four-ship Sabre formation returning for the "break". Formation was in echelon right for the left pitch-out, when, for whatever reason, lead executed a snappy break into his wing-men. Can you say: "Sauve qui peut"?

No aircraft bent, but three changes of "Stanfields" was the order of the day.

BTW, you fixed-wing wienies ought to try formation flying in a helicopter; those of us who can look upon the rest of you frozen-wing miscreants with distain! Of course, it's hard to do a formation roll... On the other hand, formation landings are a breeze!

John

[AuxBatOn]

I found myself leading a 3-ship, rejoining on a Hercules Tanker, at night time today, and managed to not kill anyone. I also hit the tanker with a part of my aircraft, on purpose, and very precisely, while being about 15 feet from its horizontal stab and 50 feet from an other Hornet doing the same thing. Then I tought how inadequate I am at flying formation, because I probably have no more than 100 hrs of flying close form.

Then we lit the burners in a 3-ship echelon right formation while departing and forgot about my inadequacy.

[Big Pistons Forever]

For example: take two snowbird jocks and give
them a clip-wing Harvard and a Beech 18 for a
photo flight. No checkouts or anything, just
point them at the airplanes. How well is that
going to work out?

Probably about as well as if they just pointed you at a Tutor and tell you to go fly the airplane with "no checkout or anything"

As for actually flying those types in formation I watched an X snowbird riding for the first time ever in a Harvard (in the back seat). From what I could see it took him about 11 seconds to figure out how the make the airplane do what he wanted. After that you could have painted his airplane on my canopy as he gave a textbook demonstration on how to fly formation.......

[Rookie50]

I found myself leading a 3-ship, rejoining on a Hercules Tanker, at night time today, and managed to not kill anyone. I also hit the tanker with a part of my aircraft, on purpose, and very precisely, while being about 15 feet from its horizontal stab and 50 feet from an other Hornet doing the same thing. Then I tought how inadequate I am at flying formation, because I probably have no more than 100 hrs of flying close form.

Then we lit the burners in a 3-ship echelon right formation while departing and forgot about my inadequacy.

Extremely cool sounding to a lowly Cessna 182 driver. Love to see video of this if ever possible. Regards and thanks for serving your country.

[Old Dog Flying]

Mixed type formation can be interesting; Jerry in his HU-16A and me in the wee Grumman AA1A. Jerry in his AN-2 and me in the Ercoupe; me in the C-45 with Walt in the Harvard on my right wing on take-off. I'm a low time formation guy but learned a lot from the guys at PFS with the Chipmunk and later at YMJ in the Tutor. Great guys all.

Per Ardua Ad Astra
Barney

[Colonel Sanders]

how inadequate I am at flying formation

Funny how you keep saying that minimum hours
of formation training is ok.

I recently listened to a retired RCAF standards pilots bemoan
that due to budget cuts, how few hours of formation training
that new RCAF pilots received, and how he had nearly been
killed many times during eval flights that he had to ride along.

He seemed to think that more hours was better, oddly enough.

Later on in your career, you probably will, too.

[Colonel Sanders]

Probably about as well as if they just pointed you at a Tutor and tell you to go fly the airplane with "no checkout or anything"

Where is it parked? I am happy to do surface acro
in it during my first (and solo) flight.

Ever heard of a Sabre? Ever seen a second seat in one?

[Colonel Sanders]

M: found the passage I was looking for, in your
favorite book: "Fighter Pilot" by Robin Olds.

Turn to page 170. Robin is flying wing in a two-ship
P-80 jet formation team. Lead is "Pappy". Robin
demonstrates the difference between hamburger
and steak, with his incredible SA on wing. Lead
hits the ground out of a formation split-S. Robin
does not.

Next, turn to page 178. Robin is leading a flight
of four, straight and level, in echleon. He is forced
by circumstances to turn into the echelon which
he tries to transition to trail. Three and four collide.
Neither get out.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Probably about as well as if they just pointed you at a Tutor and tell you to go fly the airplane with "no checkout or anything"

Where is it parked? I am happy to do surface acro
in it during my first (and solo) flight.

So no systems review, no learning emergency procedures, no knowledge of aircraft limitations, no study of recommended flight profiles, no SOPs, ejection seat training etc etc , just kick the tires and light the fire right into those low level acro's and you imply I am reckless flying formation on my FAST ticket........

[sidestick stirrer]

Reminds me of the real reason that . wrote off that NF-104. Not the reason that he gives in his autobiography, the other reason...

[sidestick stirrer]

Or when Robin Olds tried his hand at ACM with a WSO in the back, his first experience of not flying a fighter alone, against another fully-crewed two-seater.
They got waxed real good...

[Colonel Sanders]

BPF: with all due respect, IMHO solo in a tutor
is a heluva lot safer than in form with FAST card
holders. My opinion only. Your mileage may vary.

[Rookie50]

Probably about as well as if they just pointed you at a Tutor and tell you to go fly the airplane with "no checkout or anything"

Where is it parked? I am happy to do surface acro
in it during my first (and solo) flight.

So no systems review, no learning emergency procedures, no knowledge of aircraft limitations, no study of recommended flight profiles, no SOPs, ejection seat training etc etc , just kick the tires and light the fire right into those low level acro's and you imply I am reckless flying formation on my FAST ticket........

All are inadequate BPF.

[Colonel Sanders]

Rookie50: If you can fly two loops and a hammerhead
in line abreast formation on my wing, you are objectively
not "inadequate" in my humble opinion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVXWiIrTZlg


Feel free to show up in person anytime.

Note that the footage in that video was taken from the
helmet cam of a 19 year old solo student of mine, whom
at the time had 10 years of Maule and Pitts aerobatic,
formation and formation aerobatic experience under his
belt. Call TC Enforcement to verify.

How old are you, again? And how many formation loops
and formation hammerheads have you done?

I guess my problem is that I'm just not a very good flight
instructor, compared to you.

[Rookie50]

I suspect you miss my point, thats OK.

Always enjoy the videos though.