High Altitude military IFR formation flying

[Trim Stab]

Cruising along over France a few days ago, at FL400, a couple of (presumably) Rafale's overtook us, a couple of levels lower, in tight formation, following the same airway. They slowly pulled away for the next 30 mins or so, at the same level and separation, before I lost sight of them.

Excuse my ignorance, but presumably they would have been on autopilot? If not, are late generation military jets stable enough to fly for long high altitude transits by hand?

[Specaircrew]

You can fly loose formation with split axis autopilot on some aircraft, ie Alt lock in but roll channel manual.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Set height & heading hold, then just nudge the heading bug or autothrottle datum every so often (maybe every 3 mins or so). The F3 Tornado used less fuel if you used manual throttle.

Not in true close formation though. Fly a tight battle; quick radar scan ("just one ping, Vassily") to check lead's speed.

...and take a mini height split (say 80') in case you fall asleep.

[Sven Sixtoo]

Well I don't think the Hawk counts as a late generation military aircraft, and I remember being required to maintain airways IFR limits at FL3xx to get my rating with a grand total of about 25 hrs on type.

Now the Hawk has great handling qualities, but no autopilot of any sort.

It isn't that difficult, really.

OK I ended up on helicopters, but not through inability to fly a Hawk.

Sven

[Easy Street]

Have flown transits of up to 3 hours as a Tornado wingman using the autopilot in altitude and heading hold as described above... tweaking the heading bug as required. With practice a steady fighting-wing position can be comfortably maintained (about 100m separation, approx 60 degree swept) which enables visual contact to be maintained in thin clouds. If the leader's speed is stable enough, autothrottle can be engaged and tweaked until the pilot gains sufficient spare capacity to read a newspaper, do a puzzle book, eat lunch, take a leak, etc etc...

We got very good at such things transiting from Al Udeid up to Iraq for 6 years! And more recently over the Med.

[Aynayda Pizaqvick]

You can use the same techniques in modern helicopters too, though clearly at much lower altitudes!
Doesn't work so well with the somewhat 'coarse' Alt Hold in a Puma however.