JoeGepner
Member
Hi Guys,
Today I went on a lunch run with three guys from work. We were split between a Cessna Skycatcher and Diamond DA20. I was the PIC in the Skycatcher and my officemate Matt was PIC in the DA20.
On the way back, we flew as a flight of two with me (low time pilot) in lead and Matt (much higher time pilot) as number 2. As lead, I was in charge of the radio calls since Matt was concentrating on separation. Flying was pretty easy for me, I basically just kept my speed, course, and altitude changes slow and gradual, he had the hard job of staying slightly back and low off my left wing.
We landed at a towered airport, and I communicated our initial radio contact as a "flight of 2" and used my tail number of 60594. As we flew the pattern, the tower was referring to us a "60594 Flight". Matt said I did a pretty good job on the radio, but should have been answering the calls back as "60594 Flight" instead of just "60594".
My question for the experts here is do you guys know of any documentation or anything I could take a look at that explains how aircraft flying in formation are supposed to use the radio? This isn't exactly something my instructor covered during my private pilot training last summer.
I found this cool Formation Guidelines pdf on Doug's site here, but it doesn't cover the radio.
Today I went on a lunch run with three guys from work. We were split between a Cessna Skycatcher and Diamond DA20. I was the PIC in the Skycatcher and my officemate Matt was PIC in the DA20.
On the way back, we flew as a flight of two with me (low time pilot) in lead and Matt (much higher time pilot) as number 2. As lead, I was in charge of the radio calls since Matt was concentrating on separation. Flying was pretty easy for me, I basically just kept my speed, course, and altitude changes slow and gradual, he had the hard job of staying slightly back and low off my left wing.
We landed at a towered airport, and I communicated our initial radio contact as a "flight of 2" and used my tail number of 60594. As we flew the pattern, the tower was referring to us a "60594 Flight". Matt said I did a pretty good job on the radio, but should have been answering the calls back as "60594 Flight" instead of just "60594".
My question for the experts here is do you guys know of any documentation or anything I could take a look at that explains how aircraft flying in formation are supposed to use the radio? This isn't exactly something my instructor covered during my private pilot training last summer.
I found this cool Formation Guidelines pdf on Doug's site here, but it doesn't cover the radio.