Buzzing Fatality

Big John wrote:

William

Do you flinch when you are driving side by side to another auto at 80
mph on the freeway?

In formation you are at the same airspeed as the other bird (after
join up) and it is no more difficult than driving side by side on
freeway.

I'll agree you do need to keep your eyes open for a leader who turns
rapidly into you with no warning signal.

Big John (as comfortable in formation as sitting in my wheel chair)
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On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:56:13 GMT, "William W. Plummer"
wrote:


tony roberts wrote:


There are many reasons to fly
formation in civil aircraft - the most common is to get in-flight
photographs of another aircraft, but quite often it's done because when
done well, it is very rewarding. The only 'waving' we do at the other
pilot is hand signals.


Agreed - when it's done by people who know what they are doing it is a
demonstration of precision aircraft control, and great practice - and
very rewarding to the pilots. For superb examples look no further than
Blue Angels, Red Arrows and Snowbirds.

However, I believe you already know that this is not what I was
referring to.

I was specifically talking about the clowns who have no interest in
learning one single thing after receiving their PP-ASEL (often not even
that) who nevertheless go out and fly wingtip to wingtip, with idiotic
grin firmly in place, and one hand off the yoke to wave with, and create
next weeks NTSB reports.

But you knew that, didn't you?


Formation flying (was Buzzing Fatality)

If you want a little experience flying in formation, go get a glider
(aero-tow) ticket. During take off, you are flying in formation with
the tow plane although you will be 200' away. Your job is to avoid
crashing the tow plane by jerking it around. Once you get the hang of
it, it's easy enough, but I can't imagine what being 3' away from
another airplane would be like.


The driver in a car on the Autobahn flinched at 220 km/hr because he
suddenly spotted a car in the right lane while we were in the left lane.
At that speed a 10 degree heading error means 13 feet/sec side wise
movement. The driver over corrected, a tire folded under. We rolled
and spun and ended up in a ditch in the woods. All four of us recovered
but the incident indicates how dangerous formation flying can be.
Mercedes is a good car because it saved our lives. All Hertz wanted to
know what how many km we put on the car at the time we abandoned it!

William W. Plummer wrote:

The driver in a car on the Autobahn flinched at 220 km/hr because he
suddenly spotted a car in the right lane while we were in the left lane.
At that speed a 10 degree heading error means 13 feet/sec side wise
movement. The driver over corrected, a tire folded under. We rolled
and spun and ended up in a ditch in the woods. All four of us recovered
but the incident indicates how dangerous formation flying can be.
Mercedes is a good car because it saved our lives.

Not a legitimate comparison.



Jack