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OSH Arrivals

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 4:23 pm
by Colonel


I've thought for years that the best show at OSH was to arrive early and watch the arrivals.

Above is 36. Personally I've seen much more entertaining shenanigans on 27. What could
possibly go wrong with this picture?

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That's the really cool thing about aviation. Money will only take you so far. You need skill,
which doesn't come from your wallet. And, you can instantly see who has the skill, and who
doesn't, regardless of what they are flying, when it comes time to doing something well,
and with precision. Like landing.

And formation. I love formation, because there are two types of pilots in the world: those
that can control their aircraft +/- one inch in all three axis ... and those that can't. And joinup.
I love joinups. If someone can very quickly join up on you and easily maintain close formation,
they have inarguably mastered their aircraft, which is incredibly important to me. But oddly
not other people. Don't get that.

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Some things you can't learn in a year. Anyone remember Jack Roush's arrival?

Re: OSH Arrivals

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:34 pm
by Slick Goodlin
I’m excited for the day when the whole world can watch me pooch my landing in OSH.

Re: OSH Arrivals

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 12:40 am
by anofly
I need some Andrew Boyd formation lessons. I get sweaty palms when I am getting very close to another plane while airborne... I sure like to keep them where I can see them!

Re: OSH Arrivals

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:07 am
by Colonel
1) don't fly wing on a worse pilot than you. He will kill you.

2) don't take your eyes off the lead. You will kill him. If you have an unplanned need to separate in a hurry,
use the vertical - don't turn. There are many problems that -5G wings-level will solve, as a wing. Let the earth
help you, and push. if you pull, you are fighting a very large planet. Remember, aircraft can only hit if they are
at the same altitude. Oddly, pilots often need convincing of this.

3) closer is actually safer. Farther out, you are playing "crack the whip" and dangerous closure rates can occur.
The best pilot I know, Rob Holland, flies formation insanely closely, chanting "don't hit him, don't hit him, don't hit him".

4) try not to overcontrol on the flight controls and power. I use more nose-down trim, flying wing, than
you can possibly imagine. Try it. And pull back with both sets of toes at the same time on the rudder
pedals. You are pushing too hard on both at the same time, which is silly.

5) practice, practice, practice and oh yeah, two sets the spacing. If you are an experienced three and
a newbie two is bobbling up and down, look through him at the lead and fly off him. I really recommend
flying two-ship until you get a clue. If you have four airplanes, your flight consists of two, two-ship elements
which are lead by experienced pilots.

6) lead, wing and joinups are three entirely different activities that have very little to do with each other.

Lead is smoothly flying a very large aircraft and must be trusted to do so. Navigation, fuel, ATC, traffic,
Wx, terrain are all his responsibility. He should be a very experienced wing pilot and should not run the
wing out of alpha, power or fuel.

Wing (station keeping) is performing a stunt, like standing on a basketball. You have a sight picture.
Maintain it regardless of the attitude changes of the lead. Lead flies into a cloud, you stay on his wing.

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Joinups are actually an air-to-air combat maneuver, which requires that the two aircraft have equal energy,
which is defined as the sum of potential and kinetic energy. Have the lead turn, and join inside from below
and faster, converting your kinetic energy to potential energy, as you drift up to the lead. All of my joinups
are done with my throttle all the way forward for maximum energy. When I drift up to the lead's altitude,
if I have excess energy, it's my birthday. I start to do barrel rolls around him. If there's more fun to be had
in an airplane, I haven't found it yet.

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Learn to do joinups from the rear quarter (above). If you incessantly wear a white silk scarf all the time,
even to the bathroom and when you do your taxes, you will probably call that a "low yo-yo". Some the most
fun you can have, with your pants on.

Once you master that, learn to join up from a front quarter, and finally head-on. That's a hoot. Think of a
spiralled 1/2 reverse cuban-8. As in everything else in life - stock purchases/sales, simultaneous orgasms
on prom night - it's all in the timing:

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It makes me terribly sad, that there are pilots out there, that will never do this. Like dating a super-model
and never even kissing her. I knew a guy like that at QNX. A bunch of pole-dancing artists lived with him.
I mean. Why?

Re: OSH Arrivals

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:21 am
by Nark
Formation flying is the fast skill to atrophy.
I moved in to a staff position and fly the chopper less. When I do go out and fly (30% less) it’s noticeable I’m not as tight and agile as I was when I flew on my last deployment, because 100% of the flying over there was formation. Here in the US, it’s not nearly as much.

Practice, practice and practice. But if you don’t have a foundational knowledge set, your not practicing, your just repeating.

Re: OSH Arrivals

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:32 am
by Colonel
I have found that formation flying is like any other skill. Think of tailwheel flying. If you
just get barely competent, then quit for six months, you are in a world of hurt when you
start doing it again.

But if you have 10 years and 10,000 hours of tailwheel time, you can take a year off flying,
and no one but you will know how rusty you are. And it will quickly disappear with a little
practice. I have been flying this airframe for half a century now. It is in my DNA.

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Annoyingly, this has nothing to do with physics (which is kinda my religion - see below) and
everything to do, with that mushy stuff between your ears.

A pilot's brain is the most important component in an aircraft. Many other components
of the aircraft may fail (or depart the aircraft entirely) but as long as the pilot's brain is
functioning well, it will figure out a solution to the physics quiz posed with M equations
and N unknowns, to which there may be a large set of answers. All the great pilots always
figure out a way to survive and die lonely of extreme old age. Yeager, Hoover, Doolittle.


==> BELOW: My Religion <==

We all go through life, pushing a metal plate with shaped holes in front of us, extruding reality
into symbols that we recognize. Mine are Newtonian physics, and the beautiful and elegant
mathematical equations that describe our world. If our symbols are different enough, we will
not be able to communicate, and that's ok. We are allowed to be different. Try not to hate and
kill people that are different from you. It shows character.

It's a metaphor. Yes, I know I'm strange. See Elon Musk's comments on that subject.

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I'm rather chuffed that Mikey said that flying with me, was the scariest thing he had ever done in an aircraft.

This is not a subject change from formation flying.