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RV formation (record attempt) over Chiefs-Raiders Football game 2013

Very Impressive!

Proud of you guys. I'm impressed by your hard work and dedication. Wish I could have been there to see it.
 
Congratulations to everyone involved, very impressive. Brent Taylor of the Antique Airplane Association posted the following today:

"Americans historically and by nature have always found a way to overcome adversity. Yesterday in KC, at Arrowhead Stadium, that can do American spirit was on full display. Not able to call on our military for flyovers of events, due to budget battles and politics, a group of civilian pilots put together the largest formation flyover (49 aircraft) of any sporting event in history. Add to that the fact, these were aircraft constructed from kits (RV's) by individuals in their workshops, hangars and garages makes this even more impressive. But wait there's more !! All the aircraft trailed pink smoke as they flew over as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To all who were involved in making this happen........Well done, very well done indeed !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImNBuJW3sQ"
 
49 ship flyover

Greeting to all RVers,

I was lucky enough to be in this awesome formation. Before I go any further you all have to know about 3 guys: Phil Lamb (Ripper), Richard White (Maverick) and our fearless flight lead Bill Gill (BeeGee). If it wasn't for these guys this would have never happened.

I first heard about these guys and the KC Flight group last year when they did the Kansas City Chiefs Breast Cancer Awareness flight. Since my wife is a breast cancer survivor I knew I had to get involved. If any of you have been around cancer it is not a pleasant experience for the affected person but it is pretty emotionally hard on family as well. It is a gut wrenching experience and makes you very thankful of every minute we have with loved ones. To be a part of something this cool is hard to describe. My wife was there at the stadium and when she saw us fly over she said " When I saw you all overhead it was very emotional for me I couldn't help it, I teared up". I wore a pink hat on the flight and presented it to her at the game (hey, I even got a HUGE bear hug- thought she was gonna break a rib).

The whole focus of this massive amount of logistics, expense, and personal commitment was to raise awareness of be breast cancer and I think we accomplished that. The last figure I heard was $30,000 raised for the local cancer hospital. During the actual flyover brief one of the guys punched the numbers on a calculator and came up with (pardon me if I don't get it exact) 9,310 horsepower with a fuel burn of 354 gph.

On a side note, I had 3 HD wide angle cameras in the cockpit with audio and it will take some time to edit everything but will post something as soon as I can.

Thanks also to our chase plane/coach Tom McNerny for getting everyone in position. There's lots of videos on the net but I think his is really cool and I took the time to shake his hand after we got back (his link is here on the forum).

http://youtu.be/G_p-R2i13HU

Finally, thanks to Van for designing such an incredible airplane, thanks to Doug Reeves for such an awesome website and community gathering place and most of all to the KC Flight guys. To hit a Zero second deviation Time Over Target (TOT) by BeeGee (our flight lead) just at the last note of the National Anthem was truly an incredible feat.

My personal thanks to all the KC guys, I will be back next year.

Oly
 
How do they do the wing tip smoke generation?

The Smoke is from Smoke Canisters. (120 second smoke generator) They are the same ones that Julie Clark use.

How are the smoke canisters activated?

Thanks,

The Smoke Canister ignition is wired in parallel with the Nav Lights on each wing tip. 22 AWG wire is added in the wing tip (on most airplanes) and a Cannon D female contact is added on the end of each wire. (+12 V and Ground) 3 or 4 layers of heat sleaving is added over each contact and then one piece of heat sleaving is added over both. The contact assembly is then installed reaccessed in the trailing edge of the wingtip (on most of the aircraft) with epoxy and glass balloons or chopped cotton fiber. By pushing the aileron up (or down) on can access the contacts to insert the ignition wire. Flight Lead will call "Nav Lights On" and the smoke starts. Lead then calls "Nav Lights Off" just to make sure that we do not blow a fuse or trip the nav CB.

Hope this answers the questions. I hope this post does not have any "KC Flight" Propriety info in it.
 
They are the same ones that Julie Clark use.

Hope this answers the questions. I hope this post does not have any "KC Flight" Propriety info in it.

These are used by many performers from many many years back. They are commercially available canisters. There is nothing special about them. You can get them in all shapes and sizes. For some performers, these canisters take many hours to load one plane for one performance and they are not cheap.
 
These are used by many performers from many many years back. They are commercially available canisters. There is nothing special about them. You can get them in all shapes and sizes. For some performers, these canisters take many hours to load one plane for one performance and they are not cheap.

Manfred Radius uses these for his "sparkling" night show and for his wingtip smoke day show:

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23szyqa.jpg
 
a good service to the community

the non-aviation people I've shown this event say it makes a positive impression on them. good job!
 
Awesome

Very impressive team!
Will you be repeating this feat this Sunday (Chiefs vs Texans) at Arrowhead Stadium?

Selfishly hope so as I will be in attendance.

Pat Garboden
RV9A N942PT
Katy, TX
Flying phase I.
 
Very impressive team!
Will you be repeating this feat this Sunday (Chiefs vs Texans) at Arrowhead Stadium?

Selfishly hope so as I will be in attendance.

Pat Garboden
RV9A N942PT
Katy, TX
Flying phase I.

Unfortunately not; the pilots are already home, or headed that way.
 
Congratulations to everyone involved, very impressive. Brent Taylor of the Antique Airplane Association posted the following today:

"Americans historically and by nature have always found a way to overcome adversity. Yesterday in KC, at Arrowhead Stadium, that can do American spirit was on full display. Not able to call on our military for flyovers of events, due to budget battles and politics, a group of civilian pilots put together the largest formation flyover (49 aircraft) of any sporting event in history. Add to that the fact, these were aircraft constructed from kits (RV's) by individuals in their workshops, hangars and garages makes this even more impressive. But wait there's more !! All the aircraft trailed pink smoke as they flew over as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To all who were involved in making this happen........Well done, very well done indeed !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImNBuJW3sQ"

Not to mention that the cost of all 49 of the aircraft combined is less than one of the late model military aircraft by a factor of xx several! Personally, I think this is a much more impressive feat when you consider that all of these guys and girls got back in their airplanes, flew home, and went back to a completely different day job on Monday to pay for the fuel and expenses it cost them to go and participate.

Hats off! GREAT GREAT Job! This is big part of what RV'ing is all about!

Bill
 
Stadium TFR? What TFR? :D

That was very, very cool.

Bugger the military and their billion-dollar budget to get a single F-18 over the stadium, here's a bunch of average Americans who built a plane in their garage raising tens of thousand of dollars and entertaining several thousand spectators by doing nothing more than what they enjoy.

Well done, all.
 
Extremely Impressive

This was extremely impressive. Not only was the formation nice but the timing was dead on!! Very hard to accomplish.

A few years ago there was a segment on one of the games where the Air Force coordinator for the fly overs was interviewed. He was explaining how the timing is so critical and what occurs when it doesn't work right:eek:

I love the logistics of such an event!! The coordination was amazing.

I'd love to get involved in the next one!! How about 100?

Nice work everyone!!!
 
Not to mention that the cost of all 49 of the aircraft combined is less than one of the late model military aircraft by a factor of xx several! Personally, I think this is a much more impressive feat when you consider that all of these guys and girls got back in their airplanes, flew home, and went back to a completely different day job on Monday to pay for the fuel and expenses it cost them to go and participate.

Hats off! GREAT GREAT Job! This is big part of what RV'ing is all about!

Bill

To put it another way with back of the envelope figures based on 47 $80k planes with 180hp and 4 cylinders (plus a couple 6 bangers) burning 9 gph, all individually funded. Not including cost of smoke cannisters and hangar food.
Total 8900hp
416 gph
200 cylinders
$3,920,000 value
lodging $4900
travel fuel 3920 gal
Fuel cost $21,560
 
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Thanks to RVMills for the invite, not to mention riding along on the afternoon practice flight! Amazing experience and amazing people!!

I have to say thanks too him, I got to fly with him on the morning practice.

Andy and Matt, great to fly with both of you! And Andy, thanks for making the trip up to help flight check those canopy seals (from that other thread)! :)

<snip> Got to hand it to you guys, quite a feat! Beautiful flight, great fan reaction! (Bob, I like that seal you have on your canopy rail there! :))

Thanks Pat! And the seal is working very nicely (thank you very much!) :)

To put it another way with back of the envelope figures based on 47 $80k planes with 180hp and 4 cylinders (plus a couple 6 bangers) burning 9 gph, all individually funded. Not including cost of smoke cannisters and hangar food.
Total 8900hp
416 gph
200 cylinders
$3,920,000 value
lodging $4900
travel fuel 3920 gal
Fuel cost $21,560

Had dinner with Mav, Ripper and BeeGee tonight (taking a mini-vacation with the fam here)...and the boyz here are still walking on air over the weekend events. Along with everything Falcon lists above, if you add in hotels, food, smoke brackets, smoke and misc, the total expense of an event of this size is in the neighborhood of $40-50K. Even after sponsorship, that's a big investment by a lot of great people...RV People!! Then add in the $30K Fund Raising effort, and what KC Flight did here is really something special! They won't toot their own horn...so figured I'd brag on 'em a little!

A very neat side-effect of the positive publicity on this has been that numerous local organizations want to come aboard to help for next year! As one poster said earlier, this put KC Flight and RVs in the public eye in a superb way (following in the footsteps of teams like Falcon Flight and Team Aerodynamics). Well done guys!

Cheers,
Bob
 
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Congratulations to everyone involved, very impressive. Brent Taylor of the Antique Airplane Association posted the following today:

"Americans historically and by nature have always found a way to overcome adversity. Yesterday in KC, at Arrowhead Stadium, that can do American spirit was on full display. Not able to call on our military for flyovers of events, due to budget battles and politics, a group of civilian pilots put together the largest formation flyover (49 aircraft) of any sporting event in history. Add to that the fact, these were aircraft constructed from kits (RV's) by individuals in their workshops, hangars and garages makes this even more impressive. But wait there's more !! All the aircraft trailed pink smoke as they flew over as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To all who were involved in making this happen........Well done, very well done indeed !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImNBuJW3sQ"

HOLY ****! I didn't know my wife was looking over my shoulder as I watched this video. Believing it must have been military aircraft of some type she said, "I thought the government was shut down?". When I told her it was RV's she was stunned. It gave me goose bumps hearing all those people screaming when the planes came into site. Really, Really, Really GREAT JOB FOLKS!!
 
Really Cool

That was incredible. I know how much work that was for 20 seconds of flying over. Great video.

I look forward to more of them.
It is really fun to see all the RV's flying over at the Nascar races.

Also, Go Chiefs (As a Runnin' Ute alumni, I am huge Alex Smith fan)
 
Nasty's Formation briefing line up card

Really like all the pictures Nasty put up on the forum from the formation. I especially like the one below. It was very kind of you to paint your toenails so pretty for the briefing (top left in the pic). I'm sure BeeGee appreciated it. Such a professional.........

Would like to hear the story some day how you got your tactical.

24wh8x1.jpg
 
a "little" weekend football and formation...

This was extremely impressive. Not only was the formation nice but the timing was dead on!! Very hard to accomplish.

A few years ago there was a segment on one of the games where the Air Force coordinator for the fly overs was interviewed. He was explaining how the timing is so critical and what occurs when it doesn't work right:eek:

I love the logistics of such an event!! The coordination was amazing.

I'd love to get involved in the next one!! How about 100?

Nice work everyone!!!

Just a "little" formation, football, and beer over the weekend. Such a dream weekend that I had to invite my brother...

Nasty and others where talking with BeeGee of the finer points of timing during the flight. On the inbound we had to do a small turn to adjust the TOT. Planning the TOT "time over target" is an art, BeeGee is the master.

Here is a nice video from KC control room and the high five's for timing. Truly an Honor to fly with these guys and gals.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201375796771635&set=vb.275060232524775&type=2&theater
 
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finally got to my computer

Unbelievable, what a great job you guys did. Words cannot express
 
Wow... simply amazing

Wow, Fantastic Job! It was interesting looking at the many videos on You Tube that were shot outside the stadium. Many people stopped their cars on the side of the road to watch. Their cameras recorded their emotion and pleasure at the sight of the formation. I hope someone in the crew is putting together a good video that tells the whole story of the gathering, aircraft modification, practice, auction and performance.
 
A day in the sun

Here's how the flights all came together.

First Alpha flight launched, in 2 two ship elements, joining up to form their flight of 4.
Then Bravo, Charlie, Delta etc until Mike 1 was airborn. Once Mike 1 called airborn, flight lead began a turn and the flights all came into route diamond or fingertip as the case may be.
d3356bd1856ef3aa247824496c24ef3f.jpg


Next Alpha lead called Bravo flight to attach, as each flight called IN flight lead called each flight in order Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot & Golf. Next IN was Hotel & India flight. That formed the main arrow of the group.
1f04a7d3e108edd446a3229a77f29236.jpg


Juliet was next, my flight. Once we called IN flight lead called Kilo & Lima to attach, then Mike 1, number 49!
fbd21298e1558badb58d730c1d140ae9.jpg


After a 49 ship racetrack pattern or two, flight lead BEE GEE somehow had the timing all sorted out and we made our pass over the stadium at 00:00 TOT. Even in the midst of all this I was astounded at the precission and coordination of the group and amazed at how well it all went.

I am humbled in the presence of such a great gathering of aviators and can only say my heartfelt thanks to everyone for coming together. It will forever be a shining moment on my aviation and friendship calendar.
 
Links to pix & vid's

All you FBer's, facebook that is.....go to KC FLIGHT FORMATION TEAM for all the pix and vid's. Ripper has been grabbing all of our stray shots and putting everything in one easy to view spot on their FB page.

My favorite so far is this one.
76811e2b9f76012deffe46d6e8e02481.jpg
 
All you FBer's, facebook that is.....go to KC FLIGHT FORMATION TEAM for all the pix and vid's. Ripper has been grabbing all of our stray shots and putting everything in one easy to view spot on their FB page.

My favorite so far is this one.
76811e2b9f76012deffe46d6e8e02481.jpg

And from the sequence of pics that one comes from, that frame is taken as the singer was singing "Home of the Brave". Very cool! :)

Cheers,
Bob
 
Really like all the pictures Nasty put up on the forum from the formation. I especially like the one below. It was very kind of you to paint your toenails so pretty for the briefing (top left in the pic). I'm sure BeeGee appreciated it. Such a professional.........

Would like to hear the story some day how you got your tactical.

24wh8x1.jpg

Well, since Oly is the second teammate to comment on my toenail color...

...I'd like to point out the position that is circled towards the left...

...that would be my dash 4, Cougar (Mercedes). Her briefing card, her fancy toes!

Now if I was going to paint my toes, they normally would be red (to match my plane). However, I would have gone pink for this flight...just sayin'! I've already debriefed my -4 on that item! ;)

The other circles are from when we were discussing how the back of the big delta would form.

Call sign discussions over cold ones! It includes a helmet, a skull and crossbones, a Ferrari, a T-34C form hop...and a 30 year career of trying to live up to it! ;)

Cheers,
Bob
 
Re. Your Post #76

Sorry acroflygirl aka Weeble. The best post picture on facebook is this one from our own Cathy Page (aka Weeble/acroflygirl).
And the caption reads:

Hey, what did ya do this weekend....
....oh not much, went to a football game.

 
Sorry acroflygirl aka Weeble. The best post picture on facebook is this one from our own Cathy Page (aka Weeble/acroflygirl).
And the caption reads:

Hey, what did ya do this weekend....
....oh not much, went to a football game.



Weeble went to a football game with 48 friends!
 
only in America

... don't know if you guys are aware that outside of your country when something weird or wrong happens in the USA, people say "...only in America".

This time I would like to say "ONLY IN AMERICA" for the right and good reason. Congratulations from the other side of this planet... "downunder". You guys know how to put on a good show even in times of difficulty. Keep showing the spirit
 
CONGRATULATIONS

As a former member of a Canadian military aerobatic team, I am well aware of the difficulties involved in flying formation in an aircraft with a light wing loading. Formation flying is no easy task and the more aircraft you field, the harder becomes the job. To do so with forty-nine of Van's models, make it look good, and hit your TOT is outstanding performance and I take my hat off to all those who took part.

A heart felt "Bravo Zulu" to all.

John
 
Make me proud to be a pilot.

And an American.

You might not realize it, but I think you're saving general aviation in this country, one flight at a time.

--Ron
 
Wow this is amazing. As a student pilot and Eaa member building an airplane and being the fianc? of someone recently diagnosed with breast cancer this is all sorts of awesome. I will show her the video tonight.

Marc
 
From Check Six Photography..
..I hadn't seen this one here:

2mfxdhz.jpg

I gave Check Six the video and audio from Juliet One to use with their video. I expect that they will have an excellent video out of the flight in the near future.
 
BZ

As a former member of a Canadian military aerobatic team, I am well aware of the difficulties involved in flying formation in an aircraft with a light wing loading. Formation flying is no easy task (snip)

A heart felt "Bravo Zulu" to all.

John

For those of us that aren't familiar with the term "BravoZulu", it is a (mostly) Navy term for "BZ" meaning a job very well done. "BZ"was used as shorthand by signalmen using semaphore signal flags and shortwave radio men using morse code to shorten the length of messages.
 
A special flight for me

Just thought you would all like to know why we do the things we do. My wife is a breast cancer survivor and I was honored to be part of this historic event. Was it fun as hell? Yeah, one of the coolest flights I've ever had. The most important part of the flight is not the world record (although that would be pretty cool too). It is the awareness that was raised for a deadly killer to the tune of $30,000 raised by the KC Flight Group. A lot of guys and gals came from all over the country on their days off on their own dime to do this.

Special thanks to all the KC Flight guys, especially Phil Lamb (Ripper) the unofficial spokesman for the group and quite a TV personality it seems, Bill Gill (BeeGee) flight lead extraordinaire, the Master of Metal-Richard White (Maverick) and Steve Stucky (Boomer) I think he installed more smoke brackets than anyone and did most of the wiring. And thanks to Axel we all had Pink Ribbon decals to put on the tail of our airplanes. Thanks Axel, it's now a permanent part of my airplane.

Just wanted to share with you why I did it, see below

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sdjq0l.jpg


21loha9.jpg
 
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formation safety?

This was indeed a grand fund raiser and for a most important cause.
My only concern was the fact that the formation occurred over tens of thousands of people, making me wonder what thought was given to minimizing the chance of mid-air collision over the stadium?

bravo,

- Steven
800 RV3 hours
100+ hrs in formations
(but not that big!)
 
Formation Safety

This was indeed a grand fund raiser and for a most important cause.
My only concern was the fact that the formation occurred over tens of thousands of people, making me wonder what thought was given to minimizing the chance of mid-air collision over the stadium?

bravo,

- Steven
800 RV3 hours
100+ hrs in formations
(but not that big!)

We minimize the chances by studying, briefing, training to, practicing by, evaluating to the same FFI Formation Guidelines nationwide. Since we do that we can come together anywhere from far and wide and fly together in an orderly and disciplined manner. Plus, we briefed and practiced the 49-ship twice on Saturday before flying over the game day crowd on Sunday. We take formation safety very seriously.
 
OMG do they ever!

We minimize the chances by studying, briefing, training to, practicing by, evaluating to the same FFI Formation Guidelines nationwide. Since we do that we can come together anywhere from far and wide and fly together in an orderly and disciplined manner. Plus, we briefed and practiced the 49-ship twice on Saturday before flying over the game day crowd on Sunday. We take formation safety very seriously.

I have been flying for over 30 years, I'm instrument rated, I race, I fly a lot of cross country, I was in the Air Force in my youth etc. but to got to the Pylon Racing Seminar (PRS) at Reno I had to go through Formation Training. I did and I found that the superior subservient hard over militaristic discipline, intense focus and striving for perfection was not for me. It brought back memories of doing about face for hours to make my heels come together with a click in perfect alignment. I admire them when I see them perform, I know some of the actual performers now and they are dedicated to this thing they do with a kind of seriousness rarely seen outside of prison.

Bob Axsom
 
Well Bob if formation flying is not for you that's fine, like I always say you're entitled to your own opinion even if its wrong.

For me and my 15-year-old son who rode with me in the two practice flights and the flyover, not only would I do it again in a nanosecond I asked him on the way home and he agreed he would definitely ride along again.

The FFI group as a whole is a fun bunch of folks who take on this activity with the seriousness it deserves, and I enjoy being a part of it. Its even more rewarding when we can collectively put our flying talents together to raise money for a worthy cause.
 
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