Pine Bluff Formation Clinic cancelled - or was it?
I spent the first 6 months of 2015 earning a commercial certificate. Being very goal oriented, I was looking for the next flying challenge so I
decided to see what formation was about. I don't have any aspirations of team aerobatics, but flying in nice diamond
formation over the football game seems just my speed. So I started studying and that led me to trolling for a formation clinic
to attend. The Pine Bluff clinic popped up and I signed up and made the hotel reservations.
As soon at the date appeared in the 7 day forecast it was looking iffy. The clinic was scheduled for newbie intro flights and ground
school on Friday, the 2 ship learning flights on Saturday, and the last flight and return home on Sunday.
The forecast stayed consistent, with Friday being a bad day for leaving Austin, and Saturday being a bad day to fly in Arkansas.
And Sunday was going to be questionable for leaving KPBF.
To avoid IMC conditions, my plan was to fly up Thursday, and if needed return home on Monday.
Sure enough, the weather exceeded our expectations and the clinic was cancelled with just enough time to cancel
the hotel reservations. Dang. But I was sure glad I didn't have to spend three days cooped up in a Best Western in Pine Bluff,
with my plane out on the ramp in the rain.
One of my goals for the clinic was to earn a invite to learn more with the formation group here in the Austin area. That's where
the Card's came to my rescue. Friday and Saturday were out due to weather, but Cookie emailed and hinted that I just needed
to ask nice and the local group would be happy to do their part to help me along. I said, "Yeahhhh, when can we start?" Tanya
scrounged up a couple of the group to make a flight so we scheduled Sunday to get things going.
Sunday I buzzed over to catch a ground school episode at the Card's hangar at 40XS. It turns out that Tanya's arrangements
turned into a full up Falcon Flight practice session for an event that was to happen on Wednesday. We were to meet at
Georgetown for the practice so Cookie flew lead in 22C and Scoot took the helm as wing with me on my first formation intro
flight over to KGTU.
There would be a 5 ship for the Wednesday event. I rode with Scoot in 22C and Cookie was in the blue 8A.
The flight was briefed as two parts, first the practice for the Wednesday event, then a fairly standard formation practice/
checkride/intro flight. The Card's GTU hangar tenant, Beaux, was also along for the ride as a newbie.
Here's some pics, mostly from route. I thought there were other pictures from closer formation, but my camera must have been too
afraid.
Afterwards Stu debriefed the flight. The team earned the ultimate compliment, a thumbs up from the local 10 year old.
Then Cookie briefed the 2 ship flight back to 40XS. I would fly my first time as wing with Scoot as my
coach. We departed KGTU with me flubbing just about everything that could be flubbed. Cookie led us through a series of
shallow turns and we practiced route, rejoins (effectively lots of rejoins), and a cross under. Scoot wore himself out, "More power,
too far out, more power, you don't want to see the top of their wing, add power". I was just starting to feel like I was
figuring out the "add power" bit when it was time for the overhead into 40XS. I only had to log two bounces on the
landing, and after the debrief Scott finished the ground school slides with me.
At the end of the day, I had done much of the Pine Bluff curriculum and achieved two of my major goals for the event. I
now have .7 hours of formation PIC!
As an added bonus I finally got to fly with Gunbody piloting the red RV-4. That's the airplane that inspired my build.
In fact this whole flight and the participants and their airplanes are close to me and my RV on many different levels.
That's what I call a perfect day!
Thanks Tanya and Scott, and Stu, Bill, Bobby, and Ron!
