Thread by @NewtonMark

Avgeek story time.

Three and a half years ago, I was in the USA, and a mate who lives there, whose day job is flying the big orange firefighting AirCranes everyone calls “Elvis,” invites me for a Saturday of flying in his RV-8.

So Rob flew down from his house in Oregon to pick me up at Palo Alto, California, and we nipped off to his friend’s house, on an airpark near Fresno.

His friend is ex USAF. Also owns an RV-8. Callsign is “Slick,” and you might remember him as formation lead in the Mythbusters episode about whether birds use less energy when they’re in formation than they do when they’re alone.

We hung around his house eating donuts until a third guy arrived in his RV-8 from Los Angeles.

Then we went to lunch.

Lunch was at an airport restaurant at a place called Woodlake near Sequoia National Park. I think I had a brisket burger. But that’s not important.

On the way back, my mate handed the controls over to me, and I had my first taste of formation flying.

Holy fucking shit.

A little word about formation: It’s probably the most intense, mentally taxing VFR flying you can do. If you’re a wingman, your entire focus is on staying in position.

Can’t navigate, look for traffic, talk to ATC. You can barely monitor your own aircraft. 100% focus, one job.

If, on the other hand, you’re in the lead position, you have to do all the normal pilot stuff for you, and also your wingman. You’re doing all the thinking and planning and flight management and collision avoidance for everyone, ‘cos they can’t.

The only way it works is if everyone is thoroughly briefed before the flight starts, and common standardized procedures are used for everything. Hand signals, position changes, etc all have to run on rails.

After a little taste of that, I was hooked. I went back to my hotel room that night and raved to some mates in Sydney about how great it was and how we should all get trained. By the time I woke up, Eddie had found two instructors who could teach it. Booked in!

It took a few months to get organized, but three Novembers ago four of us did the training. Jeremy Miller (one of Australia’s best airshow pilots) and Pete Townsend (Australian Aerobatic Academy CFI) did the honors.

The training was in pre-thunderstorm frontal conditions for the whole week. Felt like flying in a washing machine. Somehow we flew within a few metres of each other without hitting anything and we all got our endorsements.

Practice, practice, practice. It all started to get a bit serious. As we got better at it we started to understand more about what we DIDN’T know, so we got the instructors back (with Mike Jorgensen - very good!) to put together an unofficial “advanced” syllabus and retrain us.

Formation steep turns, rapid station changes, formation wingovers, flat belly turns, line-abrest. As we were finishing, Jeremy said, “keep practicing. You all know pretty much everything you’d need to do airshows now. Have a think about it.”

Holy shit.

So we practiced. And … started getting invited to airshows. Lots of CASA paperwork. We all have “display authorizations” now, which are bits of commonwealth legislation with our names on them, through the parliament as Disallowable Instruments. Never thought I’d have my own law.

(The display authorizations exempt us from having to follow certain regulations that’d otherwise make performances in front of crowds illegal)

Our first was Narromine in 2017. If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d be an airshow pilot, I’d have giggled.

Since then: Rylstone, Lilydale, Parkes, Narromine again, a little country town near Moree. Crowd sizes from a few hundred to about 5,000.

I’m going through this progression because it’s basically our schtick.

We’re a bunch of very ordinary people who aren’t spectacular pilots who have basically fallen into airshows by accident.

Anyone can do what we do.

Our message when we’re performing is that anyone SHOULD.

I’ve just had my last flight for the year. I led a formation back to Bankstown, with a Cathay Pacific A330 captain as my wingman. We touched down on the same runway side by side, ‘cos that’s how we were trained to do it. Lovely way to end a year.

On Wednesday, weather permitting, we’re doing our first flight is the year. And if everything goes to plan, it’ll be an absolute ball-tearer. Secret.

My only point is about goals and planning. If you set out to do something, and you make little decisions along the way that make the outcome you’re chasing more likely, you WILL get there eventually.

None of us were airshow pilots. Now we are. Weird! /end

(My secondary point is to demystify. People ask about this shit all the time. Now it’s all there in one thread and I can send them a link :)

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