SA Airways jet trio on A.net

chrisesp

chrisesp

New Member
Just curious if you guys saw yesterdays top pic on A.net, an A340, and 2 747's flying in formation, pretty awsome.

To the airline pilots how difficult is that, is it just old military pilots, what happens to the TCAS, I know probably no airline pilot here has flown a 747 in formation, just curious?
 
I know nothing about formation flight, but MDPilot and MikeD should know plenty!

But I have heard that if you're not familiar with formation flying, chances are, you're probably going to hurt yourself the first time you try it.
 
Yeah mate, i saw that on A.net
Looks really good eh?

Curious what would happen to the TCAS....i dont exactly understand the way it operates...
 
If they have TCASII they'll be able to disable RA alerts (the ones that instruct the pilot to take corrective action to avoid a collision). If they just switch that bad boy over they wouldnt get any alert. As for distance from the other plane....I know TCAS I or II wouldn't give you a distance either way.

Good timing on this question
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I have my final in Advanced Avionics tomorrow morning! lol
 
Or as we like to call it "photochopped" lol

hmm, I dunno. I'll give them the benifit of the doubt till someone can confirm something solid. Although it looks cool that kinda goes under the "gotta see it to belive it" catagory
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Looks photoshopped, but I did find confirmation of the event in three South African newspapers.

Here's one example from the Sunday Times: "Mbeki's induction by chief justice Arthur Chaskalson was crowned by a fly-past of military aircraft and three SA Airways passenger liners. "

No pictures, though, and although the far 747 looks like an identical image of the first one, the first one is called the "CAPE TOWN" and the far one appears to be called "JOHANNESBURG".
 
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But I have heard that if you're not familiar with formation flying, chances are, you're probably going to hurt yourself the first time you try it.

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Agree completely. I won't say that you HAVE to have military training to fly formation, because that obviously is not true. But, you do need specific structured formation training of some sort, and it just so happens that all military pilots recieve such training to one extent or another.

Not too many have experience in flying close formation in large transport catagory aircraft, though. I did most of mine while in the Test Wing at Wright-Patterson and some to a lesser extent during airdrop flying at Norton.

Regardless, don't try flying formation with no training, or even with an instructor who "flew it once." It's very easy to have a relativly benign situation turn rapidly into a mid-air collision, and GA airplanes don't have ejection seats as the ultimate backup.
 
I have seen something like that once before at an airshow, I can't remember exactly what types were used, but it sure was cool!
 
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Looks "Photoshopped"!


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Looks Flight Simulator 2004 made to me.

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It is kinda intresting that none of the planes are overlapping or touching, and that would be really close to the ground.
 
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