"Will this be standard or non-standard?"

[Colonel]

Eric and I are established on straight-in final
for 25R, formation landing.  We had been told
to report 3 miles.

Tower asks me "Will this be standard or non-standard?"

WTF?  I have no idea what the hell he was talking
about.

Has anyone ever been asked that before?  That's
a new one on me, after 40+ years in aviation.

[John Swallow]

New one on me also.  Did they ever clarify?

[Nark1]

No idea.  Yankee who is able to uphold CFI here...

Perhaps he was asking about an overhead approach...?  Best thing would be to call and ask the tower. Www.airnav.com will have the number buried somewhere. 

[Colonel]

wilco

[cgzro]

Sounds like an overhead break or not.

[Colonel]

[url=http://www.faraim.org/aim/aim-4-03-14-633.html]http://www.faraim.org/aim/aim-4-03-14-633.html[/url]

[cgzro]

Ok greater than 100 ft vertical or 1 mile horizontal is non standard formation. So ATC must block a mile around you even when your combined wing span overlapped is likely less than 30 ft :)

[Nark1]

Nice find. 

All the formation in controlled airspace, I've never been asked. Perhaps they've assumed (correctly) it's been "standard."

[JW Scud]

So what was your reply to them?

1. Standard

2. Non-standard

3. None of your business

4. I have no idea as I didn't bother to read the formation/aerobatic flying section of the AIM for this country as I never imagined there might be differences.

5. Get me the number of any TC pilot to help me out of this situation as they know more than me about formation flying stuff.

[Colonel]

I decided the best thing was to do what was expected
of a Canadian pilot here, so we landed on the parallel
taxiway NORDO without a clearance.

[img]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam ... 2DM5E.jpeg[/img]

Too soon?