Cracking pictures, Dom. Was that their swan-song? The last I saw of them was parked up at Kemble looking sorry for themselves.

Overall, a good bit of PR and a very well managed and executed operation. Well done all.

How true indeed! For the 1977 Silver Jellybean, one large vic formation consisted of a box of 4 Jetstreams, with a box of 4 Dominies on each side. Speed had to be slow enough for the Jetstreams, which didn't leave much margin for the Dominies.

I was on a JP refresher course at the time, so went along to rubberneck this balbo from a jump seat in one of the Jetstreams. Once all 12 were joined up, we set off towards the IP only for the lead Jetstream captain to announce that he needed to lose time, so would fly an orbit.....at 30° AoB! The Dominie box on the outside coped OK, but the poor sods on the inside were almost on the buffet and had a heck of a job keeping in position. After the flypast, the inside Dominies departed with the comment "Be in your office when we land!" to the Jetstream leader. Not happy bunnies!

The pictures are from a photo shoot just prior to our final 6 ship flypast. Photos by Mr Geoff Lee. Final Flypast on 20/1/11 at CWL with CinC in the formation.
I understand that 4 Doms may be heading to Humberside, possibly by air, for use as engineer trainers.

Quality Formation Leaders are a very valuable asset. In times gone by, many would have experienced close formation as an everyday requirement of the job, and most would be well skilled.

OAP

- think yourself lucky you were not in the flypast over Lizzie's house for the Silver. With lowering cloudbase west of London the lamented late Frank Hoare at the back noticed his boys were in the TV aerials of High wycombe (the middle box had dropped back AND DOWN!...) and he ruddered the 9- ship vic out from under the melee. Another 'late', Andy Penswick , outside right of box 2 in his Lightning, got so unhappy with it all he lit the burners and pulled up to 30k+ through the LHR zone:) Great fun had by all. 'Twas the leader of the second block that were at fault although Tony Woodward, overall leader, initially got the flak but was absolved from blame I recall.

Apoogies for the image size.
http://clarionrecall.org/wp-content/...a/18.jpg?ver=1

BOAC,
super pic. Sorry to hear that Andy Penswick is no longer with us. We were groundcrew together on 92 before he gave up 'mending' to take up 'bending'.

Great pic BOAC! Oh boy, formations and flypasts seem to attract lowering cloudbases!:oh:

OAP

Superb. Shame they couldn't come up with some smoke.
Still a joy to watch all the same.:ok:

Must find my slides of a 56-ship JP formation at the Towers in the early. Must have been the rehearsal for Grad flypast on which I flew as pax, the only time in the RHS of a JP. I recall we could not log the flight time as it would screw the training stats!

I recall we could not log the flight time as it would screw the training stats!

Any time that anyone is in this predicament, log the trip but do not enter the flight time in one of the totalled columns.

This way you have the date, what you did and with whom, where you went - it provides a record for you, but this doesn't "screw the training stats"!

At the age of 66 and no longer flying, I get some enjoyment of sometimes flicking through my logbook and looking at the pics!

but you are NOT in close formation.

Actually Dominator2, flat turns can be used in close formation when flying echelon! Often used at Deci on recovery in fours! The leader just has to remember to turn away from the rest of the formation!:ok:

Newt,

You missed my point. I was saying that flat turns are not optimum for large ac, particularly with more than 2 ac, even more so if flown cross cockpit!!!!:= I spent 3 years teaching the GAF flat turns in the F4 and so I am very familiar with the benefits and techniques of how to fly them properly. "Looking Good in the Closed Pattern " is one of the most important parts of any sortie.

I must admit that trying to flat turn 9 at initials at Deci was rather adventerous but then it was Battle of Britain Day!

recceguy...
 

Wrong on all counts. But perhaps you're a troll? And your last sentence would be actionable as libellous to both ETPS and the lady concerned, were you to have the guts to post under your own name. Feel free to PM me, and then to publish an apology.

Tester78,

Well said!

So far I have restrained from posting on this thread but have been saddened that so many ignorant and, from the likes of recceguy, offensive comments have been made following an excellent video of some very professional and impressive flying; thankfully some sensible remarks have been posted also. Congratulations to all Airbus in putting this formation together and filming it so well.

L

"We" are clearly talking about different things. But what I was talking about was large low level formations of tactical transport aircraft (I even provided a photo of such a formation) and the need for eyebrow windows to accomplish that. As I stated numbers of times, these are NOT "close" formations. I asked because I have extensive experience in tactical transport aircraft (C-27, C-130, C-17) where those types of formations are flown and all of which have eyebrow windows. I cannot figure out how those formations could be flown in an A400 which does not have eyebrow windows and specifically asked if Airbus had come up with a different solution.

Regarding this formation of A350s, they do not seem to me to be a close formation at all and I do not believe they were flown in the manner of a close formation.

As for your Bear Foxtrot experience, imagine if you had been at the controls of another Bear Foxtrot in that formation turn. Could it have been done? And if you attempted it, would you be here to talk about it?

As for the various replies concerning dissimilar aircraft formation flights, that is NOT what I was talking about. I was specifically talking about a large formation of tactical transports at low level during a run-in for a large formation airdrop. Those are not done (at least in USAF) with dissimilar aircraft. I cannot speak for how the RAF does it.

..... and led by Frank Chapman, a Brit!

RAF 1980–1996, which included four years on exchange with USAF (F-16) and ETPS.
A350 XWB Project Lead Test Pilot.

Extract from an interview about the flight:

Cambs RAeS lecture
 

Folks following this thread may be interested in attending the Cambridge Branch of the RAeS Sir Arthur Marshall Lecture on 5th March.

Peter Chandler the A350 test pilot will deliver his lecture at Churchill College, Cambridge starting at 18.00. According to the information I have there is a drinks reception scheduled for 19.30


I am sure folks will have some questions about this formation.


I hope to make it if SWMBO will sign my chit.

I watched some ex-RAF heavy pilots (or was that some heavy ex-RAF pilots...) fly some close formation in a couple of Airbus twinjets last week. Would you believe, they got close enough the aircraft actually touched each other? About a dozen times!

Sadly no publically available pictures.

:E

KenV

A point you might like to consider is that the sideways and upward view a pilot has through a side window is dependent on the distance the pilot’s eye is from the window and how much the pilot’s eye is below the top of the window.

Could it be that these aspects are better in an A350 than in the types you flew?

Could be. But it seems unlikely.

Besides, I was not referring to the A350. I was referring to the A400. Perhaps the A400's specifications did not include a requirement to do large formation, low-level tactical air drops. C-27, C-130, and C-17 had that requirement and all three have eyebrow windows. They also have electroluminscent formation lights. My question was: assuming the A400 has that requirement, how did Airbus meet the requirement without those items? And for a plane theoretically optimized for tactical air transport missions, it seems to be missing other important stuff too. I'm not familiar with the details of the A400 and I was just wondering if Airbus had found different ways to accomplish the same thing. Or were those items not included as a cost saving measure?

KenV

Sure. I know nowt about the A400. Sorry if I incorectly mentioned the Aibus formation in this context.

KenV

Curiosity took me to Google and this picture of the A400M cockpit. Bit of lean forward and one might be able to see sideways and upwards better than you might expect?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ps59d375da.jpg

Maybe. Maybe not. But if seeing outside depends on getting up close and personal with the glass, that might be harder to do than you think wearing a helmet and NVG. (I'm assuming the A400 cockpit is NVG compatible.)

Ken,


The photo that John posted only shows 4 of the 6 windows. Sideways vision, and vertical vision for that matter, is actually excellent.


The cockpit is fully NVG compliant, and formation keeping at night very, very easy with/without NVGs.

One could always lower one's seat to enhance upwards vision.

The two "missing" windows appear to be in the sides of the cockpit, sort of behind the pilots, and not overhead to provide vertical vision. I still don't see how Airbus solved the same problems Alenia, Lockheed, and Douglas all solved with overhead windows, and that's why I'm asking.

There are no knee windows in the A400 either. C-27, C-130, and C-17 all have windows down low to provide forward and downward vision, enabling the pilots to taxi right up to the edge of a runway/taxiway or parking apron. In the C-17 these knee windows are roughly where the side stick consoles are on the A400. And another small nit for me is the placement of the nose gear. The C-17 uses a DC-10 nose, (the loft lines are identical) with one really big modification. The nose gear has been moved forward to put the nose gear right under the pilots. C-130 nose gear is under the pilots also. This plus the downward vision windows are really important for operating on small austere airstrips. A400's nose gear is behind the pilots. This plus the lack of downward vision windows causes me to scratch my head wondering how Airbus solved the problems Alenia, Lockheed and Douglas all solved with those features.
.
Also, many C-130 and all C-17 have "combat lighting" in the nose. These are basically taxi lights in the nose that emit in the IR to facilitate taxiing in close quarters at night with NVG. How did Airbus solve that problem?

Please understand that I am NOT calling the A400 a "bad design". Airbus just seems to take their own approach to solving various tactical issues. (For example, the A400 has kneeling landing gear while the C-17 does not. And Airbus chose to go with big turbo props rather than hi-bypass fan jets. The cargo floor design is also very different, as are the sidewall seats.) My experience is with the C-27, C-130 and C-17. I'm trying to get my head around the approach Airbus used to solve certain problems in comparison to the approach Alenia, Lockheed, and Douglas all used to solve the same problems.

Reducing one's forward vision to enhance one's upward vision seems like a losing proposition to me, especially in a low-level formation environment. Separately, all modern aircraft have a "design eye point". Moving the eyepoint around is generally not a good idea. Expecting the pilots to move that eyepoint around to solve a deficiency in the windows is just plain bad design. I refuse to believe Airbus would do that.

You took D-IFF_ident's suggestion seriously didn't you? Go on, admit it, you did didn't you? :ugh:

S-D

Yeah, he got me.

Airliner formation at AFB Ysterplaat Airshow, Cape Town (2008)


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...formation4.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...7breakaway.jpg


Close formation, well executed throughout.
Very impressive.

The 737-300 was flown by father and daughter Scully Levin and Sally Bates and the 737-200 by Pierre Gouws and Colin Gibson.


(The pics were sent to me. Mine weren't as good as these.)

I had no idea Airbus was building 737s. When did that start?:)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...mbarrassed.jpg

I meant to say Airliner formation.

Now edited.
Thanks.

Does Scully do `waterskiing` formation in the 73s as well..?(Harvard formation leader)

BTW, both 737s flyng formation in the photo have eyebrow windows. I wonder if that means anything?

It means the pointy end of the Boeing 737 belonged to the 707 to begin with, which started out as the KC 135

Great lecture at Cambridge RAeS last night by Peter Chandler. The formation flying on the big cinema screen was quite impressive although we had seen it before on the small screen through the earlier link on PPRuNe.


Water ingestion and cross wind landing trials were interesting but the highlight for me was how they induced the oscillations for flutter testing through the FBW.


Someone tried to draw Peter into the sidestick vs steering wheel debate. Not a single mention of lack of eyebrow windows! Sir Michael even joined in with the banter.