Mid Air Collision Over Wisconsin, All Survive

Meh. I've flown a fair amount of "untrained" formation. You read how it's done from the guys who are trained to do it, then you do as they do, no exceptions, and it's fine. I wouldn't do it with someone I wasn't 100% sure about and knew personally for all the tea in China, though.

PS. I'm always Trail. Always. Call me "untrusting"...
 
Meh, I've flown about 50hrs of untrained formation (I'm estimating here) it wasn't exactly rocket science.
Rule one - Don't hit the other guy!
Rule two - Don't lose sight of the guy you've attached yourself to.
Rule three - everyone involved needs to have an escape plan to break up the formation if need be.
Rule four - everyone involved needs to have a plan for the form up so they don't run into each other.
Rule five - study up before you do it for the first time.
 
Seriously, dudes -- this is a lot like a pedestrian going for a demo flight, and after which they said "this isn't rocket science, anyone can do that".

I'd respectfully say that ya don't know what ya don't know; just as the demo flight guy hasn't even scratched the surface of all the knowledge and decisionmaking and judgment required to actually be a "pilot", I'd argue that untrained guys don't know what you don't know when it comes to what is required when flying safe formation. Just like it isn't too terribly difficult to herd a GA airplane around in flight, it isn't too difficult to get two airplanes close together when flying around at up to 30 whole degrees of bank and manage to not hit each other. It is handling the "what ifs" that make someone a formation pilot rather than just a guy who is flying close to another airplane.

If it were really that simple, you wouldn't have/need organizations like FAST or FFI to teach and certify it. @ppragman's rules are important ones, but they are so overly broad that they miss the actual skill in how to accomplish each one of them. There is so much depth to each of those (and there are more "rules" than that, FWIW) that it is just as unrealistic as saying to be a 121 pilot all you have to do is "not crash" or in order to make it through military pilot training all you have to do is "not suck". The devil, as they say, is in the details.

In all honesty, formation flying is not that tough to learn or perform at a basic level. I teach much more complicated formation aerobatics and maneuvering in a supersonic jet to hundreds of 20-somethings per year. I'm confident that any of you on this board could learn to be very safe wingmen (not flight leads) in GA aircraft with a handful of flights and a couple hours of academics. It would take more experience and training to become a formation leader after being a wingman. The cornerstone to doing that safely, though, is learning ALL of the important parts in a controlled environment with defined roles from instructors who know what they are doing. To do otherwise, IMHO, is a serious risk to your safety and whomever you are flying with (because, remember, when there is a midair in a formation -- unlike when a solo pilot does something stupid which just results in him getting killed -- there are at least two pilots whose lives are in danger).
 
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I've only flown formation once, and refused to be lead.

1) I had no experience
2) If I'm the one in formation, I keep my eyes on the lead, all the time, no exceptions, if I lost visual with the lead I break away from the formation, no exceptions.


All of that being said, I've flown jump planes as well, and I know that on the jump run, when you're alone, you're watching the instruments, flipping back and forth looking at the divers climbing out, I admit very rarely scanning outside the cockpit, being in formation requires you to always have sight on the lead, I have no formal training on the matter but that much is just common sense, and should have been briefed before. I also wonder if these guys had any sort of plan for the descent phase.


If they said he was highly experienced with 400TT, if 200 of that was flying jumpers that's around 600-800 flights give or take. That's a fair bit of experience. Also I'd rather fly with a diver driver with 200 hours flying skydivers than a pilot with 1000 hours flying right seat in a Beech 1900. (VFR anyway ;) )
 
If the characterization was "highly experienced" and the qualifier was "400 hours," then they're wrong.
 
tomokc said:
If the characterization was "highly experienced" and the qualifier was "400 hours," then they're wrong.
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400 hours flying jump planes is a pretty highly experienced jump pilot.

As a pilot in general, no.

Depends on what context they were speaking about.
 
This story has oddly made me miss flying meat bombs.... should be the opposite.

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Boris Badenov said:
Meh. I've flown a fair amount of "untrained" formation. You read how it's done from the guys who are trained to do it, then you do as they do, no exceptions, and it's fine. I wouldn't do it with someone I wasn't 100% sure about and knew personally for all the tea in China, though.

PS. I'm always Trail. Always. Call me "untrusting"...
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I'm sorry but this is what gets people killed, this kind of attitude, specifically from someone who doesn't know how to fly form. Unless someone is trained to fly form, stay away from my wing. Form flying is not hard, most folks can be taught basic form flying. Like Hacker said, it gets a bit more involved as speed or maneuvering increases (there is TAC Form or over the top cruise form for example), night time, in weather (in weather at night is the most difficult in my opinion, sans goggles of course), more than two aircraft, etc. As far as this mishap, I don't what happened, I can only speculate. One, you can't see through metal....maybe, with the jumpers on his wing, he started to drift, didn't see the other aircraft..I don't know.
 
canadian_atc said:
1) I had no experience
2) If I'm the one in formation, I keep my eyes on the lead, all the time, no exceptions, if I lost visual with the lead I break away from the formation, no exceptions.
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I really don't mean to single you out, but the above is a good example of what @Hacker15e and @bunk22 are talking about. There is so much more prior planning and training that needs to occur before stepping to the aircraft. You say keep your eyes on lead all the time, no exceptions. Well, that's not always the best choice. If you're flying "fingertip" formation, where you're tucked in close to lead, you can and should be spending most of your time looking at him. If you're a bit more spread out in route or cruise formation, you need to be clearing your own flight path.

Losing visual with lead is another dangerous situation that needs a very well developed plan and procedure to affect a safe breakaway and, if necessary, a rejoin. If you're 2 in a formation of 4 and you lose sight of lead, are you going to peel off aggressively to get separation or are you going to reduce power, turn away from lead's last known position by X degrees, begin a climb to a safe block altitude, radio lead to inform him of your situation.....?

There is a lot that needs to be thoroughly understood by every pilot in the formation well before we light the fires.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Ok, I'll remember not to formate on you guys.
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That's an excellent survival plan.

A few years back, a group of T-34C's were flying down to Key West, 7 or so total. At some point, the IP's had the idea to join up in a diamond formation. Now all this IP's were trained to fly form, basic form. I have no idea what their background was, most likely helo or P-3 guys. Doesn't mean they can't fly form, as a primary IP, if you are form qualified, you will fly lots of form.

Anyway, the IP in aircraft on the bottom of the diamond want to get a good pic from beneath, so she transferred controls to the student. I don't know if he had completed forms but he drifted up into the leads prop which tore into the rear cockpit, killing the IP instantly, cutting the plane in half, the student crashing to his death. Ridiculous from so many aspects but poor planning, diamond flying is not part of primary form flying, etc, etc.
 
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Flying formation is like flying a jet - easy until something unforeseen happens.

Get formal training first.
 
SteveC said:
Flying formation is like flying a jet - easy until something unforeseen happens.

Get formal training first.
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I agree and thought it's not like flying form in a C-172 is going to be as aggressive as a cruise form or coming out of the stack at the boat, but can be dangerous. I'm talking true form here, not taking a wide cruise type of position though that can be dangerous as well. Train, gain experience, form up. I love formation flying, one of the most fun types of flying out there!
 
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