Mid Air Collision Over Wisconsin, All Survive

bunk22 said:
Was there a 45 mishap? I had no idea, I've been out for the last week.
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I didn't expect you to comment, I was concerned that you were involved and glad to have seen your posting resume. Regardless, I hope the crew is recovering well from their injuries.
 
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bunk22 said:
Then you're not flying form, you are flying within visual range of an aircraft (regardless of the FAA definition). Form flying is not that difficult, baby form anyway. This is form flying:

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I saw this and immediately the following jumped in my head in the voice of a National Geographic announcer.

"And here we see the male Hawkeye displaying its Radome plumage to attract the female Greyhound."

Also, that's really, really awesome.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
I didn't expect you to comment, I was concerned that you were involved and glad to have seen your posting resume. Regardless, I hope the crew is recovering well from their injuries.
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Gotcha...I'm a bit slow sometimes...most of the time :) I retired from the Navy back in April as well, no more 45 time for me. Looks like it was a VT-86 bird, the crew ejected safely. The Goshawk still has yet to have anyone killed in an ejection...post ejection yes. Good seats in that bird. I trusted them for sure when I flew it.
 
genot said:
I saw this and immediately the following jumped in my head in the voice of a National Geographic announcer.

"And here we see the male Hawkeye displaying its Radome plumage to attract the female Greyhound."

Also, that's really, really awesome.
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That was me flying off the E-2 during a tiger cruise fly-by. Thing is, the E-2 could walk the C-2 easily, they had to slow it down (relatively speaking) for the pass. In reality, it was slow as shiite but that's props for you. I think we are at 330KIAS....
 
bunk22 said:
Was there a 45 mishap? I had no idea, I've been out for the last week.
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I thought you were being sarcastic.

bunk22 said:
Gotcha...I'm a bit slow sometimes...most of the time :) I retired from the Navy back in April as well, no more 45 time for me. Looks like it was a VT-86 bird, the crew ejected safely. The Goshawk still has yet to have anyone killed in an ejection...post ejection yes. Good seats in that bird. I trusted them for sure when I flew it.
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My bad, I thought you were still instructing. FYI, they didn't eject. They pulled them out after they landed short.

bunk22 said:
That was me flying off the E-2 during a tiger cruise fly-by. Thing is, the E-2 could walk the C-2 easily, they had to slow it down (relatively speaking) for the pass. In reality, it was slow as shiite but that's props for you. I think we are at 330KIAS....
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That's a nice shot for the I-love-me wall.
 
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There's formation thats nothing more than same way/same day with two planes, and there's form that is much closer than that and more demanding with maneuvering, etc. While I believe that it's very smart to get training before flying tucked into another aircraft (what you don't know and don't catch, can hurt you concept); there's no epidemic of civil midairs that necessarily requires there to be any rule for having training. That said, if you do happen to have a midair and you didn't have any training for the evolution(s) you were performing..............AND you happened to not get killed during the midair..............the FAA will happily place their catch-all "Careless and Reckless Operations" portion of 14 CFR 91.13 all over you; even worse if your plane happens to kill civilians on the ground.

So the BL is, you as a pilot have to determine if the risk vs the reward is worth it. It may be in certain cases (middle of nowhere, no close formation, etc), it may not be in other cases.
 
MikeD said:
there's no epidemic of civil midairs
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I imagine quite a few cases of dents and swapped paint aren't getting reported.

While there are surprisingly few form mid-airs in GA, I think that abundant warnings have had positive results, as the stats suggest. Should the lack of accidents silence the warnings? I don't think so.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
I imagine quite a few cases of dents and swapped paint aren't getting reported.

While there are surprisingly few form mid-airs in GA, I think that abundant warnings have had positive results, as the stats suggest. Should the lack of accidents silence the warnings? I don't think so.
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I agree, I don't think it should silence the warnings; which is why I posted what I did and I write what I write. Do we need a regulatory requirement for form training? No, I don't necessarily believe so. Which is why I like to stress to pilots the importance of training, as well as what can and likely will happen to them legal-wise if they happen to be lucky enough to survive a midair resulting from form flying. It's one thing if training for what you were doing can be documented; it will be another if it can't. Risk vs reward.
 
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bunk22 said:
Then you're not flying form, you are flying within visual range of an aircraft (regardless of the FAA definition). Form flying is not that difficult, baby form anyway. This is form flying:
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Not always true. The fighter community has a lot of combat formations that have aircraft flying quite a long ways away from one another. In the USAF, Tactical Formation can have two aircraft flying between one and two miles away from each other, but still maintaining a precise position (in the case of this photo, line-abreast position, but there are others, too) and with the wingman station-keeping and maneuvering in precise relation to the flight lead. Tactical is the primary "fighter" formation, as it maximizes forward sensor/weapon firepower, while allowing better visual lookout between the two, denying "tally two" to adversaries, and allowing individual maneuvering once tactical execution is in progress.

Flying tactical formation is actually quite a bit more difficult than flying "close" formation (ergo, fingertip, etc) because you have to rely on more subtle perceptions of visual cues of being out of position. There is obviously less danger of a midair if you screw up, but the chances of an angry instructor killing a poorly-flying student are significant. We don't jack around when it comes to flying good tac form.

Here are two T-38Cs in line abreast tactical formation. The briefed position is 6,000' line abreast, but for this photo I had the wingman collapse in to 4,000' because it made for a better photo.

TacForm_zps21cbf715.jpg
 
Hacker15e said:
Flying tactical formation is actually quite a bit more difficult than flying "close" formation (ergo, fingertip, etc) because you have to rely on more subtle perceptions of visual cues of being out of position. There is obviously less danger of a midair if you screw up, but the chances of an angry instructor killing a poorly-flying student are significant. We don't jack around when it comes to flying good tac form.
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And it's all considered formation, just as you say. Albeit non-standard formation insofar as the FAA and their administrative look, but formation nonetheless.

As you well know, close form ....while cool.......doesn't have a ton of tactical application in a combat sense. It's great for a form takeoff/landing, or launching/recovering expeditiously through the WX (ASLAR, anyone?), or around the tanker, or for an EP; but in combat itself, being in close or route........contrary to what many laypersons think......sucks the crew SA into the formation, rather than outside of it where it's supposed to be.

Looks neat, but little combat use. We learned that lesson with "Fluid Four" ops in Vietnam.
 
Hacker15e said:
Not always true. The fighter community has a lot of combat formations that have aircraft flying quite a long ways away from one another. In the USAF, Tactical Formation can have two aircraft flying between one and two miles away from each other, but still maintaining a precise position (in the case of this photo, line-abreast position, but there are others, too) and with the wingman station-keeping and maneuvering in precise relation to the flight lead. Tactical is the primary "fighter" formation, as it maximizes forward sensor/weapon firepower, while allowing better visual lookout between the two, denying "tally two" to adversaries, and allowing individual maneuvering once tactical execution is in progress.

Flying tactical formation is actually quite a bit more difficult than flying "close" formation (ergo, fingertip, etc) because you have to rely on more subtle perceptions of visual cues of being out of position. There is obviously less danger of a midair if you screw up, but the chances of an angry instructor killing a poorly-flying student are significant. We don't jack around when it comes to flying good tac form.

Here are two T-38Cs in line abreast tactical formation. The briefed position is 6,000' line abreast, but for this photo I had the wingman collapse in to 4,000' because it made for a better photo.

TacForm_zps21cbf715.jpg
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I flew Tac Form as well Hacker, these guys aren't even flying baby form, let alone Tac Form. I think I mentioned it earlier but decided not to mention again as it's something civilian guys most likely will never experience. I have a night form pic too but that's outside the norm too I think.
 
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bunk22 said:
I flew Tac Form as well Hacker, these guys aren't even flying baby form, let alone Tac Form. I think I mentioned it earlier but decided not to mention, something civilian guys most likely will never experience. I have a night form pic too but that's outside the norm too I think.
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@Hacker15e 's pic looks like Tac Form DCS or OCS, as I knew it. They haven't gone and changed all the TLA's (three letter acronyms) have they?
 
Pilot Fighter said:
@Hacker15e 's pic looks like Tac Form DCS or OCS, as I knew it. They haven't gone and changed all the TLA's (three letter acronyms) have they?
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yeah the sight picture is a little off since it isn't God's chariot, but that looks like a tight DCS to me. We transit a lot in "standard formation" while co-altitude in spread. Select baralt+hdg hold, ATC, and then use the heading bug to fly form.
 
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