Pop Some Smoke

[Colonel]

I am sure it is considered juvenile, but I rather like turning on the smoke when ATC
calls my formation out as traffic for someone. Despite all the toys, people keep
running into each other, often close to a controlled airport with tower talking to
everyone. Oops.

LOOK OUTSIDE

I love running smoke, because like water vapor, it teaches you about the production of lift:



It allows you to see how air moves underneath and behind an airplane. Bonus points
if you've ever heard the hissing/snapping of a passing vortex!



Lift is interesting to me. It keeps airplanes in the air. Without lift, they crash. And,
their production of lift can cause a wild ride for other aircraft. This is also interesting
to me.





If those images don't make you stop and think, you have no soul.

[cgzro]

Ive been using smoke blips for visibility for many years. Very useful. I remember a contest many years ago where a dozen acro planes were all arriving into a busy small airport circuit at the same time and the concise radio work, use of smoke blips and procedures they used was very educational for me.

[Colonel]

The funny part of that is when someone calls out an instruction for a single aircraft:

"Biplane about to join downwind, pop smoke"

... and three biplanes turn the smoke on

I remember being #9 on downwind for Rockliffe, once. Eric thought that was stupid,
he quietly fucked off to Gatineau.

Then there was the time we had three S-2B's, all the C-registrations ending with PS
going into Wilkes-Barre, all of them talking to Tower ... the confusion never stopped
until the props did.