Monday, March 12, 2012

Formation Flying - AeroDynamic Aviation

Formation Flying - AeroDynamic Aviation Tube. Duration : 15.02 Mins.


My first formation flying lesson with AeroDynamic Aviation at Reid-Hillview Airport, CA (with the idea of working towards the FFI qualification). We started with a two ships flight (two Citabria 7KCAB) and practiced the basics: from taxiing, to station keeping (45 degrees off position, with a step down), "welded wings" turns, cross unders, communication protocol (using radio, hand signals and/or control surfaces), took turn as lead or wingman, breaks and rejoins, and ended with a 360 overhead approach and break. This initial flight was over an hour, condensed here under 15 mn; I cut the parts where the other ship is not visible (eg, when taking the lead, or when the lead is at my two o'clock). This video was taken using the GoPro HD Hero attached to the left wing rear strut using the roll bar mount (modified with added washers) and edited using iMovie'11 (I did play with the image stabilization feature, which causes an odd artifact whereby the camera looks like it is moving relatively to the aircraft); Note that with a wide angle lens, the other aircraft is closer than it looks!

Keywords: Formation, Flying, aerodynamic, Aviation, Citabria, gopro

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