Scudrunners

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.

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.

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.