Dominator and HL
You make fair points. And I don’t think I articulated my point very well.
Individually it is of course possible to get a great instructor who isn’t a QFI and conversely you can get a QFI who isn’t a very good instructor.
My point was that it appears the instructor in this case let things run foo far. A causal factor may have been the poor visibility in the back of the T-38. Good instructor training (of any variety) may have prevented this from happening.
The more I think about it the more ambivalent I become on the issue.
I still fly and teach formation take offs and landings regularly. If we stopped them it wouldn’t be the end of the world. But I think it would be a shame.
Heavy, older jets have always made them more risky. I would wager that flying them in a Typhoon, for example, (if in fact that ever happens) would be far easier and safer.
The fact of the matter is that they are safe if practiced and taught correctly but we could probably cope just fine if they were outlawed.
Doing them just because we always did is not an excuse. We used to do night, conventional pairs take offs in the Jag. That doesn’t mean I think we should still practice them.
If I were a duty holder I would need an awful lot of convincing that pairs take offs were still necessary though. Especially now that all of our frontline jets (and even our main training jet - in a synthetic but very reliable fashion) are radar and datalink equipped.
This accident is obviously tragic and I don’t like the victim blaming but we all accept risks in our job so a lawsuit is unnecessary in my opinion.
BV