Originally Posted by BackPacker
Simple. PPRuNe is just one mouse click away, and the flying club a 45 minutes drive - and then I have to get lucky and stumble upon somebody knowledgeable by accident or set up an appointment.
Having said that, if the forum convinces me that even "in company" flying is something you can't do with proper training, then the flying club formation team is obviously the way forward. But so far we've established that "in company" flying means several hundred meters apart and I'm not convinced that that requires some serious training. A proper pre-flight briefing, yes. Attention to detail, yes. Contingency planning, yes. Perhaps a shorter leg, for practice, yes. But a week at Kemble flying Yaks in close aerobatic formation... Not convinced yet.
Read my first post. It was an idle question, nothing serious planned. But the scenario I have in my head is to participate in one or two of the UK events in spring 2008, together with some likeminded fools, since there's only one event held in the Netherlands, and that's in the fall.
But it's just one of the possible scenarios. I first need to find a few likeminded fools and enroll in a UK event, and convince the likeminded fools that flying "in company" might be useful and not more risky than flying alone before this scenario would actually play out as discussed. The chance that this will actually happen as described here is very close to zero. Nevertheless, it has been an interesting discussion, even though it will most likely remain largely theoretical for me.
The bit about the NW course (not Kemble!) was more to emphasise that effective formation isn't really about the distance between the aircraft, but the attitude and preparation - its a state of mind, not something measured in metres.
It would be great to see you & your friends at a competition next year - the provisional calendar should be up on the BAeA website soon, if it isn't already. But, please, take some advice on your transit (from somewhere other than the internet) - as I've alluded above, some I've had a reasonable amount of experience with nasty transits to aerobatic competitions with mates who wanted to fly 'in company'.