WetCompass
I had a student at 2FTS during the formation flying phase, who was having issues with what to do and say when the wingman loses contact and calls “blind”. When we sat down and discussed it, he showed me his preparation notes. He had written down every possible scenario like this:
LEAD, below safety height, turning towards, descending
WING, below safety height, turning towards, descending
LEAD, below safety height, turning towards, climbing
WING, below safety height, turning towards, climbing
LEAD, below safety height, turning away, descending
WING, below safety height, turning away, descending
LEAD, above safety height, turning towards, climbing…..
……and so on and so on. Below each heading he wrote down every action and radio call, it went on for literally PAGES of text. The problem with this method is that when faced with a scenario, he was spending way too long trying to remember the exact mental cassette (that’s how old I am…) to plug in before acting — and when faced with a slight variation to his prepared responses he couldn’t cope because he didn’t have the exact response.
It was because he spent too much effort trying to learn the ANSWERS when he should have been learning the FORMULA:
Get me safe
Get wing safe
Get above safety height
Organise a height separation
Organise a rejoin
It’s not specific for every scenario, and you may call it winging it, but it gets the job done. As 601 said above: that’s why you get paid the big bikkies…
You remind me of that student: always looking for the exact answers, never thinking on his feet.