April 30, 2011 - Form Practice w/ Dragon Flight |
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Finally the forecast was predicting good flying
weather for this Saturday which was when Massey Aerodrome was having their
annual spring Fly-in. Even better, a replica of the 1911
Curtis-Ely Pusher would be at the fly-in and might actually fly.
This was the airplane that was the first to land and take off from
a ship. I've been looking forward to this day all
week. The plan was to meet the other Dragon Flight RVs at
Carroll County airport at 9AM, do some formation practice, then fly to
Massey as a team.
Sure enough, the weather was good. In fact,
as I headed northwest over Baltimore, the weather was great.
Visibility was phenomenal. The air was smooth. Everything on
the ground is now green, instead of winter's dirty brown and grey.
With the new lens on my camera, this is the best picture of Baltimore I've
ever taken. |
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At Carroll County, when Mike R.
(Cuban) pulled up in his RV, I didn't know who it was. In the
last month, he had replaced the "pastel" colors of his RV with a more
aggressive paint scheme. Jack S. drove up in his MG to check it
out. |
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I was lead initially. We had a four-ship: Tulip was
#2, Aussie #3 and Cuban #4. The broken layer was around
6000 feet so we climbed above it in search of smooth air.
The following shots were all taken by Aussie's passenger Steve.
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Above, it was all blue. |
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| Below, it was white
and green. |
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| We did some easy
turns in fingertip formation to get warmed up. Then I moved Cuban
into the slot for some Diamond formation work. |
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After some maneuvering in Diamond
formation, I put Cuban back into Fingertip, then I had Aussie & Cuban
do a cross to the opposite side so we were in Echelon formation.
Then we did some easy Echelon turns as shown here. |
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| Then it was time
for some break and rejoins. Here you can see me well into the
break. Tulip has just started his break. |
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| I turned the lead
over to Tulip and became #4. |
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| Nice shot of my RV
in flight over Maryland countryside. |
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I'm surprised my RV looks as good as
it does. It was covered with yellow pollen when I arrived at the
airport and I didn't have time to wash it. Maybe the wind blew it
off. |
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Shallow echelon turn to the
right. You can just see Tulip's canopy behind mine. |
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| Great
close-up of Cuban. You can just see my left wingtip to the left
of his sunglasses. |
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| Tulip and me on
Aussie's wing in a right turn.. |
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| Shallow Echenlon
turn to the left. |
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Still in a left hand Echelon
turn. |
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I really enjoyed the formation
practice. All too soon it was over. We landed back at Carroll
County. Tulip had to leave but Jack S. in the RV-8 pictured below
decided to join us in the transit to Massey
Aerodrome.
I had the lead since I knew the way to
Massey -- back across Baltimore, over Essex Skypark, and across the
Bay. |
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| Aussie was
#2. Steve got this nice shot of me on our side-by-side
takeoff. |
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We weren't really in formation flying
across Baltimore. To stay under the Baltimore Washington
International (BWI) airspace, we had to stay below 1500 feet. |
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| You can see the
Francis Scott Key bridge to the left of my RV. |
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| Aussie is over
Essex Skypark with the rest of us over the Back River. Cuban is
testing out his newly installed smoke system. |
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| Once over the
Eastern Shore, Cuban moved into the lead with Aussie and I on his wing in
a V formation. Jack has never flown with us before so he was just
hanging behind us, not in tight. We overflew Massey at 1500 feet --
above the traffic pattern -- and Cuban popped his smoke. |
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In the turn back to Massey, we
separated to about 1000 feet between planes. You can see Massey just
to the left of my rudder.
There were a number of planes in the
pattern but we fit in pretty easily and landed on runway 2. |
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