Cherokees in close formation

On 2005-08-30, Jay Honeck wrote:
And, of course, we flew up to OSH '05 in loose formation with Jack
Allison and his Arrow...

Flying that close to someone is very tiring, but it's tough to get
air-to-air photos any other way!

It is tiring, but I've done Houston to OSH and back again in formation
(C140 and C170). I've also flown a little bit of VERY close formation
with Debbie Rihn (which kind of made my pilot-rated passenger a little
bit nervous :-))

Our regular group in Houston progressed to making regular formation
takeoffs and landings. Possibly the most bizarre one was when we did a
flight of four (which did NOT include a formation takeoff and landing!)
which consisted of a Cessna 140, Grumman Tiger, Cessna 170...and a Beech
Bonanza. I was flying the Bonanza - gear up but with full flaps! It'll
fly fine with the 140 with the flaps down. (I have some photos of the
Bonanza on my website which were taken from the 140).

Sadly, I've not had the opportunity to do any for the last couple of
years (well, except if you count glider towing and being towed) since
it's something I enjoyed a lot.

--
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"

Dylan Smith wrote:
Our regular group in Houston progressed to making regular formation
takeoffs and landings. Possibly the most bizarre one was when we did a
flight of four (which did NOT include a formation takeoff and landing!)
which consisted of a Cessna 140, Grumman Tiger, Cessna 170...and a Beech
Bonanza. I was flying the Bonanza - gear up but with full flaps! It'll
fly fine with the 140 with the flaps down. (I have some photos of the
Bonanza on my website which were taken from the 140).

WEW!!!
Grossly dissimilar aircraft!
The 140 is firewalled, the 170 is happy, the Tiger is in slow cruise,
and the Bo is just hanging on (well, not quite that bad :-)).
Sounds sporting!

On 2005-08-31, john smith wrote:
Grossly dissimilar aircraft!
The 140 is firewalled, the 170 is happy, the Tiger is in slow cruise,
and the Bo is just hanging on (well, not quite that bad :-)).
Sounds sporting!

Not too bad - I wouldn't really want to do it on a long cross country
(we were only going 35nm or so), but the Bonanza is very capable of slow
flight. It has very effective Fowler flaps, and using some kept the
plane flying without the nose sticking way up in the air. We were doing
about 90 knots.

--
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"