Anyone Can Land A Jet

[Colonel]

But who can land seven at the same time?!



The lead is magnificent. Notice that he touches the stepped camera ship in box
down perfectly, to use all the runway.

The music is even better. SNL needed more cowbell. Whoever made this pastoral
soundtrack - which makes the video - thought he needed more cow. You can hear
it mooing!


PS I think the Red Bull plane swap is this morning. I heard they are cousins, which
surprised me - I have been lectured by Canadian lawyers that families should not
fly together, and I believe them.

[mcrit]

My form skills were never top of the line (I tend to let my hand tense up, which leads to jerky corrections, which leads to a more tense hand until … ‘two’s off blind high right’). However, I always liked and was good at wing landings. Slower speeds (aircraft less responsive to pilot twitchiness) and less dynamic manouvering make it a very gentlemanly event.

[Colonel]

Formation is like screwing. You need a lot of practice to get really good, so you can get relaxed and show off for a crowd.

[mcrit]

I think you need to learn form when you are young and still think you are immortal, not when you’re 40 with kids.

[Slick Goodlin]

PS I think the Red Bull plane swap is this morning.

Sounds like it didn’t go well. Trying to find decent video now.

[John Swallow]

Formation landings ARE fun.

Nine plane landings are not difficult; little hard on brakes at times, but quite doable..

[Colonel]

That’s the great thing about RV’s …. their acquisition and hourly operating costs allow normal pilots time to develop some pretty impressive formation skills.

Warbird guys, take note!

[John Swallow]

"Nine plane landings are not difficult..."

I was more commenting about jet formations than the RVs...

Trouble with the little buggers is that you can't develop enough drag to allow a high enough power setting that will allow all wingers adequate operating range. Another ten degrees of flap or spoilers or speeds brakes would be a boon... To compound matters, we're using slightly different platforms: RV 4s, 6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s.

It's all fun; we've done a couple of 8/9 plane flyovers to date with another three in the near future. Nothing fancy: we're a one -trick pony: "Fly over; reverse course; repeat."

[Colonel]

you can't develop enough drag

It's all about the prop. If you have a three blade constant speed prop,
you can dial in whatever thrust or drag you want. In a light aircraft with
no mass, you can do ridiculous things.

An little airplane is totally changed by the prop. I remember jumping
into a little S-1C - I think Neil's? - and arrogantly thinking, I can fly this puppy.

Ha.

Well, with it's fixed-pitch 2-blade prop, it has virtually no drag on approach
and I was over the runway threshold about 140 mph or twice what it should
have been, even with the throttle all the way back on downwind, which might
have been a wee bit closer to the runway than it really should have been,
with no drag.

I should have overshot, but that's the wonderful thing about a taildragger -
you can stick the mains on the runway at Vne. Looks good, going down
the runway with the stick forward and the tail 'way up in the air to try to
kill the lift.

Good thing I had 4000 feet of runway - I needed it all! Shoulda overshot,
but we don't do that in aviation. No sir, we always push a bad approach
into a bad landing. Or someone might get angry at us, and that's worse
than crashing, in the 21st Century.

[Scudrunner]