• Flight of two, IFR

    From jackrmoeller@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 18 18:00:56 2019
    I fly F-16s with the Air Force. There are essentially three methods of formation flying through IFR. The first is by maintaining fingertip formation (roughly 3 foot wingtip separation). Flight lead flies off his instruments while wingmen fly visually off
    him since you can usually see far enough to maintain visual inside of a cloud. This is normally done as a 2-ship. There are also specific procedures for deconflicting if you lose the visual. The second is instrument trail where you take off with some
    briefed time delay and every flight member calls their altitude over the intraflight frequency every 5000 feet during the climb and calls every turn. This is only done on departures and flight members are not allowed to be at the same altitude until in
    VMC and visual with each other. The final one is most common in fighters which is called a radar trail. This is where every flight member locks the one in front of them with their radar and deconflicts based on that.

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  • From Sam Spade@21:1/5 to jackrmoeller@gmail.com on Sun Jan 12 06:31:04 2020
    On 12/18/2019 18:00, jackrmoeller@gmail.com wrote:
    I fly F-16s with the Air Force. There are essentially three methods of formation flying through IFR. The first is by maintaining fingertip formation (roughly 3 foot wingtip separation). Flight lead flies off his instruments while wingmen fly visually
    off him since you can usually see far enough to maintain visual inside of a cloud. This is normally done as a 2-ship. There are also specific procedures for deconflicting if you lose the visual. The second is instrument trail where you take off with some
    briefed time delay and every flight member calls their altitude over the intraflight frequency every 5000 feet during the climb and calls every turn. This is only done on departures and flight members are not allowed to be at the same altitude until in
    VMC and visual with each other. The final one is most common in fighters which is called a radar trail. This is where every flight member locks the one in front of them with their radar and deconflicts based on that.

    Like anyone cares.

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  • From Paul Tomblin@21:1/5 to Sam Spade on Mon Jan 13 13:12:43 2020
    In a previous article, Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> said:
    On 12/18/2019 18:00, jackrmoeller@gmail.com wrote:
    I fly F-16s with the Air Force. There are essentially three methods of formation flying through IFR. The first is by maintaining fingertip formation (roughly 3 foot wingtip separation). Flight
    lead flies off his instruments while wingmen fly visually off him since you can usually see far enough to maintain visual inside of a cloud. This is normally done as a 2-ship. There are also
    specific procedures for deconflicting if you lose the visual. The second is instrument trail where you take off with some briefed time delay and every flight member calls their altitude over the
    intraflight frequency every 5000 feet during the climb and calls every turn. This is only done on departures and flight members are not allowed to be at the same altitude until in VMC and visual
    with each other. The final one is most common in fighters which is called a radar trail. This is where every flight member locks the one in front of them with their radar and deconflicts based on
    that.

    Wasn't there a case about 10 years ago when the Blue Angels were doing the first method and they got separated and some of the followers ended up 10
    miles off course?


    --
    Paul Tomblin <ptomblin@xcski.com> http://blog.xcski.com/
    "Dad, I left my heart up there."
    -- Francis Gary Powers after his first flight (age 14)

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