FAA's Experimental Aircraft reference material
Making the Transition to an RV
Very Cool Links!
The RV Finder
CG Calculator
Van's Air Force; World Wide Wing
Scott Millhouse's trip to Vans
Precision Airmotive carb information
Jim Harchanko's "Engine Story"
"Don't Turn Back!"
safety article by Doug Rozendaal
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Downloads
W&B Program
must also install the
update
and here are
the instructions
AC 20-27E
(pdf, 2.3 meg)
This is the circular you need for info about registration and inspection
Do a Roll in Tracy Crook's Mazda powered RV-4
Engine Info
A great article with useful data about acquiring an engine
Article by Bob Archer about his internal wing-tip nav/com antennae
Product listing of Bob Archer's internal antennae
GIF of Archer type antenna (Bob Nuckoll's AeroElectric Connection)
Download the TVRVBG logo
(copyright 2002)
Formation Flight Basics
(This article was contributed by TVRVBG member Jeff Crabb (Lt. Col. U.S. Army, retired, Apache helicopter and RV-6A pilot). Since the TVRVBG is growing rapidly, and most members have little or no training in formation flight, this is an area which demands great caution and attention.)
As you can tell by flying with me for awhile now, I love formation flying. I love the
challenge of it and there's nothing prettier that a group of airplanes all in harmony
together. As with anything done well in life, formation flying takes practice.
First, let me say I don't claim to be an expert in formation flying, but I have done a
lot of formation flying in helicopters (day and night) over the years (one time with about
60 helicopters all beating the air into submission at once) and the basic principles are
the same for fixed-wing aircraft. Some of this may be a review and I won't bore you with a
lot of detail, but here are a few ideas that I think will help us be safer pilots and look
good when we want to do that fly-by down the runway. I know some of this might be
confusing without drawing a picture, but I would be glad to discuss any of this the next
time were together.
Let's start with the Pre-Flight. We really don't have to get into the detail that we would
planning a military mission or an Oshkosh precision fly-by, but we probably should cover
some basic things, which we do most of the time; for instance, flight positions (ie. lead,
1, 2, 3, 4), air to air frequency (ie.122.75) after departure, transponder settings (rule
of thumb is only lead squawks 1200, all other aircraft squawk standby), weather, airspeed,
heading, altitude, type formation enroute, type formation if doing a fly-by, etc. Most of
the time we have plenty of space between us so it's not an issue, but as we get closer
together in flight this information becomes more important. As I indicated at the
beginning, the best way is to just go out and practice with each other taking turns at
lead and wingman. I would be glad to fly right seat with anyone or have anyone fly with
me. Flying formation takes trusting yourself and your wingman, both of which will grow
with practice.
Next segment is Take-off and Climb. The basic element of formation flying is "Flights
of Two". It doesn't matter if there's twenty of us, we always have a lead and a
wingman. So when taxing out to the runway, if we're not taking off single ship, we should
take off in flights of two. The best technique is to have lead line up in front on the
downwind side of the runway with his wingman on his left or right slightly back. This way
his prop wash gets blown away from his wingman on take-off row (and we have all
experienced this!). Most runways are wide enough to provide the needed separation in case
lead had to abort for some reason and the wingman could continue his take off or abort
also. The next two aircraft don't begin their take-off roll until the first two have
cleared the runway and started a climb. On climb-out, lead shouldn't run off and leave
everyone. The basic technique is to reduce power and maintain an airspeed that allows the
other flights of two aircraft to catch up (ie. for the RV's maybe climb at 100mph until we
get to cruise altitude, then accelerate to cruise airspeed). Basic rule - the wingman always
keeps lead in sight!
In Cruise flight, a couple of basic rules are; the wingman never gets ahead of lead unless
there's radio contact so both know what's happening and lead should always do shallow
turns of 20 degrees or less. It is important for lead to maintain the briefed airspeed,
altitude, and heading. In regards to type of formations flown, the basic is trail, left or
right echlon, staggered left or right echlon, finger tip, diamond, and numerous others. It
is almost impossible to fly a left or right echlon formation in the traffic pattern
because of all of the
required steep turns and the inside pilot will have a hard time getting slow enough while
the outside pilot can't accelerate enough to keep up. If you think about how the
professionals do it at airshows, they start way out getting everyone just where he needs
to be, they make the fly-over and then get ready to land by putting everyone in a loose
trail formation for landing. The basic position for the wingman is 45 degrees off of
lead's left or right with your eye's on lead and your hand on the throttle - adjusting as
necessary. Always make a radio call to lead telling him you are going to slide in closer
on his left or right. You must always be on alert for overshooting! You never want to
approach lead in trail formation. By closing in on lead off to either side you have an out
if you begin to overshoot.
During Landing, we could touch down in flights of two on a normal wide runway, with the
lead two aircraft landing by touching down long, followed by the next flight of two
aircraft landing short (just like landing at Oshkosh or Lakeland), but I recommend we just
get everyone in a loose trail. This keeps it simple and most of the time out of the
vortices/prop wash of the aircraft in front of you.
Hope this helps - I'm up for some formation flying, how about you!!! I think with a little
practice we could do a good right echlon or diamond formation down the runway...
Jeff Crabb