North Texas Open Formation Practice
 

We will have another open formation practice at LNC on Saturday, November 19 (rain day November 20). FFI card holders will get an opportunity to hone their skills, intermediate pilots will get some practice and folks new to our group will get a familiarization flight and/or some instruction in formation procedures. We will meet on the ramp at LNC at 0900, fly a sortie, debrief and have lunch. After lunch we will have another sortie or two depending on interest.

Join us for some fun,

Pat

Will you accept FFI card holding RV9s? ;);)

Jarhead is in for the FUN. I would like to see some new pilots show up.
It will be fun eather way.:D

I have an RV9-A and I'm interested in learning formation flying.
Are there any airplane requirements, certification or endorsements that are necessary?
Thanks
Gil

None required
 

Glad to see you posted up Gill -- I'm sure Glider will elaborate, but basically for this "open" get-together there is nothing required but your interest and undivided attention. You can be a complete novice. What's most likely going to happen is that since you are totally new, you will be paired up with someone experienced and ride in THEIR aircraft. This will give you some exposure to what the picture is - both visual and physical. In addition to these informal sessions, there are formation clinics held at various locations several times a year throughout the country - we just completed one about a month ago up in Pine Bluff AR. Those environments combine training flights with ground school instruction - it's much more than just "flying close".

Required versus Nice to Have
 

Scott,

You are welcome to join us.

Gill,

In order to get any hands on flying in your ship, your airplane will need full functioning dual controls (dual sticks, rudders and a non vernier throttle the safety pilot can use). If your airplane does not meet these requirements, we still welcome you to come along for a ride with us, learn about proceedures, and discussions will probably reveal some accommodation we can make for future flying.

The subject of RV-9's comes up somewhat frequently, so some notes are in order. Although the 9 is a fine aircraft, it is not the ideal airplane to fly in a formation with RV-4, 6, 7 and 8's. RV-9's in formation together work great. Although you can learn to fly formation with the other RV's (Scott is a great example of this), it would be better to use one of the other two seat RV's, or fly with other RV-9's.

As far as certifications or endorsements, for fun formation flying, none are required. However, FAR's do require all pilots in the formation to be briefed on the proceedures to be used for any individual formation flight, and you can expect to see some fairly intensive pre-flight briefings, as well as post-flight debriefs. We don't take formation flying lightly, so no one gets to fly solo in our formations without demonstrating a certain level of competency.

To fly formation in an airshow, special pilot endorsements are required.

Let us know if you have any other questions,

Pat (Glider)

If my time and airplane aren't otherwise accounted for, I'd like to attend. I'll be one of the complete novices.

Thanks for in the info Pat.
I will be there, weather permitting of course.
I don't have non-vernier throttles for the right seat but thats fine.. I'm positive I have a long way to go and plenty of time to augment.

Gil