All my friends are writers

Dear reader, I am going to assume that you don’t know a ton about formation flying, and I’ve tried to explain things the best I know how. However if you are one of the pilots in this story, then I beg your patience, and hope that I didn’t get anything too heinously wrong!

We've all been that kid who stands at the airport fence and wishes they could fly in one of those ridiculously cool aircraft.
Sometimes, that wish can come true...

Swing back to October 2023, and I'm driving past Fredericksburg airport (Gillespie County; T82) and noticed it was unusually busy, even for a sunny Friday. There's a popular diner on the field which always attracts plenty of aircraft, but this was exceptional. I stopped in to see what was going on, just as a flight of four Beech Bonanzas taxied in. There were a lot of other Beech aircraft parked up already, so I assumed it was a Beech fly-in of some variety.

The pilot nearest me got out of his aircraft and I asked him what was going on. He told me it was a formation training clinic. I said, "Cool!". And then the brain cell kicked in, so I added, "Would you like some photos of this?". On being told "yes please!", I reached for my camera, which of course wasn't there since I'd not been expecting to do this today. One mad dash back to the house later, I found myself in a flight briefing with the four pilots who were about to practice formation! I flew with them once that Friday afternoon, and once more on the Saturday morning. You can see the results here: http://futurshox.net/eventgallery.php?eid=446

The clinic ran all weekend, but since it was such a surprise, we had other things going on too. I vowed that next year; I'd give it my full attention. So I kept an eye on things, kept my calendar clear, and asked if I could come again this year. The answer was YES!

Back to the present day...

The pilot who had been so kind to me is Jay, is one of the leaders of the Texas V-tails. These guys are part of B2OSH, Bonanzas to Oshkosh, a group that encourages formation flying training with the end goal of making a mass arrival of over a hundred aircraft into Oshkosh. (The rules there are that if you want to camp together, you have to arrive together, so this is how the group was born). There's several regional groups all over the country, who get together in the days immediately before the show starts to gather the formations.

Jay told me to be at the field for the briefing at 9am on Friday. So there I was. Twelve pilots gathered in the briefing room, with their aircraft on the ramp outside. They were mostly Bonanzas, both straight-tail and V-tail. A couple of Mooneys, a Vans RV-8 and an F1 Rocket were also present. The briefing set the stage for the days to come. After a welcome and a review of the local terrain, hazards and aircraft capabilities, each flight was assigned and split into their groups.

My first flight was with Delta Flight. The airspace is segmented into eight sectors, radiating out from the airport at the center. Delta segment was to the southwest of the airfield. The flight gets named after the sector it is operating in.

The briefing then goes over all the mission objectives, which were very similar for most of the flights. Those objectives included finger-four formations, turns in that formation (left and right), wing & element cross-under (where the aircraft swap sides); configuration changes between finger, diamond, close and extended trail; echelon turns, breaks and rejoins. Radio frequencies are set. Emergency contingency plans are laid out. Watches synced up. As the weekend went on, people added to the objective list as needs be, depending on what they wanted to practice.

Once everybody is happy, they set an engine-start time about 10 minutes in the future; giving folks enough time to get ready. Out to the aircraft; a quick pre-flight, check the fuel truck actually did pay a visit; tanks are full. Get in, plug in the headset, strap in. Ten seconds before the start time, switch the electrics on. 3...2...1...crank the engine. Three other engines up and down the ramp spring into life, matching our own.

The lead aircraft moves out, Delta 2, 3 and 4 join behind him. Taxi to the run-up area. Four aircraft swing to 45º for engine checks, then back to the taxi line. Hold for any inbound traffic, then onto the runway. Lead goes to the left, 2 to his right. 3 and 4 line up behind them as a separate element. Once 4 radios that he's in, Lead calls the Go and the first pair takes off. 3 and 4 wait for 6 seconds (or whatever was briefed) and then start their roll in turn. Gather speed, 4's eyes are on 3; take your cue from him; don't get ahead. Wheels lift off the tarmac, stay down a bit to get some speed, retract gear, climb to chase the others. Watch out for wake turbulence; you're climbing into where they just were. It kicks you sideways if you get into that; it's quite noticeable.

Lead turns towards the desired sector. We're in Delta 4. We and 3 turn inside his radius to catch up. It takes a minute to get there; we're all climbing at this point, but eventually our element swings in underneath the lead pair to join up on their outside. It's a thing of beauty to watch the aircraft ahead cross above your windshield; then you're slotted into place in a finger-4 and things settle down a little. Your frame of reference changes; no longer based purely on earth and sky, but on the tightly clustered group of aircraft ahead of you. The lead aircraft is the sole focus of 2 and 3, while 4 flies on 3’s wing. From here on in, we have no clue of where we are or where we are going; everything is based on Lead’s navigation. Lead wiggles his tail to kick you all out into the looser 'route' formation and you head off to the practice area.

Once there, Lead rocks his wings to bring us back to the tighter formation. From here, we practice turns in Finger-4. Lots of photographic opportunities here as people are right close by you.

Then we drop back into Trail; we chase each other around the sky a while before Lead pulls us into Echelon formation, in which everyone is stacked on the same side. Even better photos to be had here; if you're in the Lead ship, you can get those pretty nose-on pictures; however they're formating close enough that most of those noses are hidden below your wing, so your mileage may vary on this one. This is not a photo mission; they'd stack very differently to pose for a picture. The no.4 position can see all three clearly through the front windshield.

From here we can practice breaks; Lead banks hard away from the formation; usually three-second intervals separate each aircraft's departure to follow Lead. Grab pictures of them as they pitch away; this is the most dynamic you'll see them. 2, 3 make their break, then three seconds later the horizon tips over as you snap into into a 45º bank. (The minimum standard for this is 30º; a lot of guys like to reach 60º!) Pushed into your seat, you fly down and continue the curve, chasing the others.

You end up with a loosely (and hopefully evenly-) spaced formation of aircraft arcing around the sky; at this point they often practice Lazy Eights, which is basically a big rollercoaster ride in the sky; lots of turning up and down and left and right and plenty of G-forces! Not quite a corkscrew (nobody is going upside down) but a lot of fun. Not easy to photograph, either - everyone is very spread out at this point - but fabulous to experience Did I mention that a lot of these folks are ex-military fighter pilots? They don't hold back on some of these turns. It's great!

Lead rocks his wings again and settles into a gentle turn; everyone makes slightly tighter turns than the guy up ahead in order to rejoin. We're turning to the left; Delta 2 joins on the left of Lead. Delta 3 slides behind Lead and joins to his other side. We swing under the whole lot of them and join on the rightmost edge.

RTB - break - land
Debrief
Variation on briefing
14-ship

It was a normal April morning in 2017. My friend, M, and I were due to fly from Taylor, TX (T74) to a mutual friend’s grass airstrip east of Dallas; a flight of about an hour. The weather was clear; I recall some high level thin overcast kept it from being too bright.

We set off around mid morning, intending to spend the afternoon/evening with our friend before heading to another event the next day. I was sitting in the right seat in M’s Vans RV-6 aircraft, a two-seater homebuilt which he had constructed several years before, and in which I had enjoyed the privilege of spending many hours, so I was familiar with the aircraft. M often let me fly it and this day was no exception, so I had control of the airplane.

The day was calm, although the air felt a little squirrelly - the RV-6 is a sporty airplane, whose wings respond like a car with a tight suspension; you can feel every bump in the wind. It just felt a little twitchy here and there, but otherwise we enjoyed a smooth ride at around 3000ft.

Without warning, there was a massive BAM! as an air bump hit us, with force enough to lift us up by several inches and whack our heads off the top of the canopy. Ouch! This was very definitely Not Normal. As we recovered ourselves, I realized I was holding the control stick about a foot up in the air - it had come out of its socket - and also my phone had departed from where I'd stashed it under my leg, into the footwell.

I gave M control of the airplane immediately, and he took the Mickey a bit while I was fishing for my phone. The stick was re-rooted into its slot. (Apparently M’s wife never liked to fly with the stick in place, so he never used the locking pin, for easy removal.) Phone retrieved and stowed, we flew along normally for a couple of minutes, until - BAM! - another big wallop.

At this point I looked down, and saw flames licking around my feet, in the footwell. I simply said, “Fire.”
M’s reply was succinct; “Son of a bitch!”

Thankful that I’d chosen to wear my stouter shoes that morning, I started stomping on the flames. The rubber mat under my feet was on fire, with an electric cable laying across it, no doubt the source of the ignition. I was glad I'd retrieved my phone.

M quickly turned off the electrical system in the aircraft. This stopped the fire from getting any more fuel, but it also meant we then had no radio, no GPS, no navigation, and no flaps. We did have power; the airplane was fitted with magnetos rather than fuel injection, so the engine kept running just fine, and we continued flying. We couldn’t communicate with each other through the headsets, we had to shout and use hand signals. Although we really didn’t try to talk; M was busy flying the airplane.

I was still stomping on the flames. The cockpit quickly filled with black smoke; burning rubber is pretty noxious. It became hard to see, and breathe. M reached over and fully opened the cabin vents, which helped thin the smoke. I looked out of the window to see what kind of terrain we were over. Of course, in this situation, one can’t help but speculate on what the outcome might be. We have another mutual friend who’d had a nasty accident a couple of years earlier involving an engine fire and forced landing - he’d survived, but was pretty bad for a while. (He’s flying again now). I wondered if we’d end up in the same situation. I looked out at the mix of wooded areas, fields and towns below; trying to figure out a landing site should we need one. And then I told myself that if we didn’t want to be landing in a field, there was nobody else that was going to fix this, it was up to me to put the fire out.

After what felt like an age, but in reality must only have been a minute or two, the smoke had cleared and I’d squashed the last of the flames. We were still heading on a straight line course in the general direction of our friend’s strip, but landing there was no longer an option. M opted to go to Terrell (KTRL) which was close by; slightly east of our original destination, and which had a lovely long paved runway. This had all occurred when we were about ten minutes away from the grass strip, so we did not have far to go.

Remember the lack of navigation, without our electrical power? Well, M is one of the few pilots I know who does not have ForeFlight on their phone, so I pulled out Google maps… we were low enough to catch a phone signal, and the good old blue dot showed us which direction we were going in. Not exactly orthodox - but it worked! We swung to the right a little to head towards Terrell, which quickly hove into view.

Keeping our eyes on stalks looking for traffic, since we couldn’t radio our intentions, we made an approach into Terrell. M went to enrich the fuel mixture, but when he pulled on the mixture knob, the whole thing fell out of the panel! We made a very rapid landing without the benefit of flaps. The long runway there was a blessing and we touched down without any further issues.

Taxiing onto the ramp, M clasped my forearm; we looked at each other, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

We later determined that the cause of all this was the battery retaining strap. In his aircraft, the main battery was placed on the cabin side of the firewall, in the middle, between the two sets of rudder pedals. The first big jolt had broken the strap. The second big jolt threw the battery out of its slot and allowed it to short circuit on some of the cables - the mixture cable being the main recipient; it had been melted in half. One of the main power cables had detached from the battery and ended up laying across the footwell mat, which started the fire.

Our friend drove over to Terrell and supported us while we calmed down, and inspected the airplane. M spent the afternoon fixing up a new battery pack and retaining strap. We flew back again the next day without incident.