MId Air Crash footage

[nortont]

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-ne ... /#53461411

^ 2 pilots with no idea what they're doing....


Plus....

Everyone sells outs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle ... story.html

[Heliian]

Epic luck

[dogger7]

Holy Sh!t Balls.

[slowstream]

Wow, so lucky to be alive, but some very damaging video to the pilot

[Colonel Sanders]

I think it's wonderfully egalitarian that pilots with
little or no training or experience can fly formation
like this.

The important thing is that no one's feelings got hurt.

[cdnpilot77]

They did a good job getting down safely

[grimey]

Reminds me of this one, also with a better outcome that you would expect.

[grimey]

^ 2 pilots with no idea what they're doing....

Honest question, as I know pretty much nothing about formation flight. Would the lead plane be at fault at all here? I would think his responsibility would be limited to keeping it straight and communicating any manoeuvres to the trailing aircraft.

[PilotDAR]

I don't know if there was intentional formation flying associated with this event. If so, then that, it itself was not good. In my opinion (having flown lots of close formation, and carried jumpers - but NEVER at the same time!) a pilot forming up during formation flying would be much too committed to maintaining position safely to be able to attend to dispatching jumpers. The operation of the top hinged jump door seen in the video requires deliberate yawing the aircraft, which would be definitely not conducive to safe formation flying. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but I am saying that it should not be attempted!

If the two aircraft were in the same airspace, or loose formation, it was the responsibility of both pilots to be aware of the other, and maintain an awareness of their relative position. Again, jump piloting is higher workload, and adding more tasks is a bad idea.

If two aircraft are to fly in planned close formation, following the required ground briefing, the lead pilot will fly their plane as though they are responsible in the airspace for both planes. The pilot forming up, will look at ONLY the lead plane (or plane they are to form on, if more than two), and NOTHING else. The forming up pilot should never (and never have to) watch for traffic, or talk to ATC. Certainly duties like managing the operation of a jump door, and a cabin full of jumpers exiting the plane, and affecting the control of the aircraft, is not safely possible.

[Colonel Sanders]

In my opinion (having flown lots of close formation, and carried jumpers - but NEVER at the same time!) a pilot forming up during formation flying would be much too committed to maintaining position safely to be able to attend to dispatching jumpers

People do it all the time, when they don't have a single
large airplane, capable of carrying all the meat bombs.

Most of the time it works out.

With sufficiently skilled pilots, it's actually not a big deal.

Following is me, Freddy and Martin in vic, about to do
a formation 1/2 roll to the inverted, to drop the meat
bombs in our front seats out, to open a Central America
airshow:



I am sure the egalitarian formation pilots here do much
more challenging stuff than that.

[AirFrame]

With sufficiently skilled pilots, it's actually not a big deal.

Exactly.

Unfortunately it's not possibly to become "sufficiently skilled" without 1000 hours of training by the Colonel.

[Colonel Sanders]

Wow - still bitter about getting spanked, eh?

No, in the photo above, everyone held a SAC
with formation endorsement - just like you
pretend to.

If you don't like the experience requirments
for an SAC card with formation, whine to ICAS,
not me.

[cgzro]

Vintage wings has a formation training camp in august in gatineau, highly recommended.

I organized briefed and copiloted for a formation jump with two Twins last year and it was a non event but we spent a lot of time briefing every second of the flight. Of course the jumpers wanted to change everything at the last minute and we basically told them no. I could definitely see a problem if a young pilot allowed the jumpers to dictate how things are done.

[TG]

I don't know if there was intentional formation flying associated with this event. If so, then that, it itself was not good. In my opinion (having flown lots of close formation, and carried jumpers - but NEVER at the same time!) a pilot forming up during formation flying would be much too committed to maintaining position safely to be able to attend to dispatching jumpers. The operation of the top hinged jump door seen in the video requires deliberate yawing the aircraft, which would be definitely not conducive to safe formation flying. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but I am saying that it should not be attempted!

PilotDAR, I've done it hundreds of time. Jump runs in close formation.
Not an issue if everybody is prepared and knows what to do.
If not it will end up on YouTube (with tears or not) the way they did.

There is no deliberate yawing to open a hinged jump door, not until you close it. Of course, you don't do it inches away from the other aircraft

My best formation jump experience happened with them:

[Colonel Sanders]

Of course the jumpers wanted to change everything at the last minute and we basically told them no. I could definitely see a problem if a young pilot allowed the jumpers to dictate how things are done

This is why you need to be a grumpy old guy and
say "No, we're going to do it as briefed".

You can't be afraid to hurt some people's feelings
and keep them alive.

[PilotDAR]

PilotDAR, I've done it hundreds of time. Jump runs in close formation.
Not an issue if everybody is prepared and knows what to do.

Fair enough, I only flew a hundred or so jump runs in the 185 and 206, so I am of modest experience.

But, I've done a lot of well briefed, close formation flying, with never a scare, because we disallowed the kind of distraction you'd get with a cabin full of jumpers.

If a pilot can manage it all at once, that's up to them I suppose - but not for me!