Formation flying

"Paul Sengupta" wrote
For those that know me (and for those who don't if you're interested!)
here are some photos that my friend Ed took from the passenger seat
of the lead aircraft of my plane during the formation flying course I did
weekend before last. The third along on the top line shows the distance
I was away from the other plane for most of the time.

Nice photos. Formation flying is a blast and it's really a shame more
people don't do it. You can do it in any airplane (unlike aerobatics)
and it breeds a certain precision in your flying because you must fly
relative to another object, something most pilots do for only a few
seconds at a time as they land.

Here are some that my friend's wife took from the back seat of his
Baron as we did some formation work out over the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.thisoldairplane.com/photos

This one gives a pretty good feel for our relative position when we
tucked it in.

http://www.thisoldairplane.com/photo...0/107_0716.jpg

You can see all the oil and exhaust stains on my belly in this one,
taken as we did a formation break to the left.

http://www.thisoldairplane.com/photo...0/107_0724.jpg

Michael

In article , Michael wrote:
Nice photos. Formation flying is a blast and it's really a shame more
people don't do it. You can do it in any airplane (unlike aerobatics)
and it breeds a certain precision in your flying because you must fly
relative to another object, something most pilots do for only a few
seconds at a time as they land.

Three of us flew from Houston to OSH in formation (in two aircraft, a
C170 and C140) a couple of years ago. It takes some concentration doing
that on a long cross country :-)

The most mismatched formation I've flown in was a flight of four - a
C140, a Grumman Tiger, a C170 and a...Bonanza! The C140 was going
flat-out, the Bonanza had full flaps (but gear up). Fortunately, that
was only a 30nm trip. It gets expensive flying a Bonanza that slowly on
Hobbs time.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"