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.
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.
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:
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?
