Talk about a tight formation.
 

I would not like to park that close to another aircraft.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_OYPs29rtk

Yeah, outstanding, whatever...

Same old.

Bit of turbulence as well.

To use a much overused word - awesome.

Any idea what the wingmen are using as visual cues for station keeping?
Probably positioning the leader's wingtip missile rail in your earhole would do.

Pointless. 3 inches or 3 feet looks exactly the same from the spectators' perspective.

Having to break from the formation with an emergency could be interesting, but as already said seems a pointless risk.

That is impressive - whatever the reason for it. However, if they fly that close all the time, statistically, there must be a risk of a 'wing-tap' from time-to-time?

Close formation
 

In my experience closer is often easier. There is no manoeuvring so it's not as dangerous as you might imagine. Also since it is a small formation they are all formating directly off the lead which is far easier than being the outrigger in a much larger formation where wobbles are magnified the further out you are.

I'm not saying it's child's play but with practice it's not as crazy as you might think.

Before the critics open up I should also add that I'm not claiming to be as good as these guys and I agree that it is impressive.

BV:ok:

If you have got it, flaunt it!!

And yes, they do "touch" now and then but nothing that a paint job wont fix. The Aim9 rails are easily changed.

Bob, you hit the nail on the head, Practice makes Perfect. But you do have to be GOOD to start with.

There's a USAAC song about it. A line is;

'with the leaders wingtip on my lap'

I think he did well to hold that formation at the same time as he was filming it with his other hand!

The mediocre always criticise excellence as pointless.

But is it truly excellence? Surely the team exists exist to wow the public? The public don't see the excellence because they are probably the best part of a mile displaced. As someone else implied, in the pursuit and presentation of excellence this bit of the display involves relatively wide boring turns and flypasts. It reminds me of the Turkish All Star F5 display team who used to fly reasonably tight formations but ordinarily took up two or three English counties whilst doing so. :zzz:

There comes a point where pursuit of excellence translates into stroking of egos. :)

PS. The only bit of relevant excellence I see in that video is the rock steady profile flown by the lead.

Green is such a boring color.

Impressive, but is it as impressive from the ground?


Red Arrows synchro pair looks a lot more impressive on the ground, but they're a lot further apart in the air.

Isn't it sad that some people just cannot read a post without imagining that the writer has adopted the persona of the post rather than merely expressing an opinion.

Tourist, does my criticism of your irrational statement make me mediocre?

It is utterly fatuous to assume that a simple criticism implies superiority in act, deed or thought by the writer rather than merely the ability to observe and report.

That is a criticism that can be levelled at all displays.

I would agree that some of the Blue Arrows moves cover large areas, but I think it is very easy to see how close they are from the ground.

No, because my "irrational statement" was not an exceptional bit of writing. Little effort was expended in writing it, and I have no great skill as a writer.




I find those that criticise excellence in anything to be pitiful, be it any one of the pointless things that people excel at. (except morris dancing)

Figure skating, sprinting, jumping, painting, singing, mountain climbing.

All these things are pointless, but life is improved by those that make the effort to be awesome at something, anything.

Those that snipe are a waste of space.

How close together do two wings have to be before they start to mutually disrupt each others' airflow and cause stability problems?

I ask because I would have assumed the situation shown in the video would cause all the aircraft to bounce around in each others' turbulence, but clearly not.