Formation Fun

[TX-EcoDragon]

A few days ago "Hwkmn" and I took a friend along during some formation flying and he grabbed some pics and video.

"Hwkmn" formed off my left wing at sunset:


From Hwkmn's plane off my right side during a wingover:



A couple videos:

http://ftp://69.56.198.2/Full Scale Flying/Brett's flying Vids

S!

TX-EcoDragon
Black 1
TX-Squadron XO

[TX-EcoDragon]

Me off Hwkmn's lower right:Me during our formation briefing for the return flight, with Hwkmn and Jeremy reflected: Two ship departure (and my head) as viewed from my aircraft:Climbing out over the hills of the Western Sierra Nevada FoothillsDuring a crossunder from Hwkmn's right wing to his left while heading home right into the setting sun:Life is good!S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-CUDA]

....Darn it Eco, with landscapes like that I am gonna have to come visit! Very nice Pics my friend!TX-CudaMinister of Information

[TX-Kingsnake]

Life is good when you get high. The pictures are very clear through the glass. I plan on joining you next year for more aerobatics. And if I get a heap of loot I'll take my lessons again.TX-Kingsnake

[TX-EcoDragon]

I look forward to it King!S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[LW_Tornado]

No shat Rocky, almost everytime he films its some painting ive never seen before, and REALLY kewl to see Hwk soloing now , hasnt been to long since he started with you a couple yrs ago, awsome stuff you guys !!!!!!!!!!!S~ Hellaenvious

[TX-EcoDragon]

Yeah Tornado. . . Hwkmn has come a long way, I feel like a proud father  ;-DS!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-EcoDragon]

Hwkmn off my wing in a Pitts S-2CS!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-Rahman]

Dang...must be nice!!Regards,TX-Rahman"BLACK 4"

[TX-CUDA]

Really nice pics Eco! Sure looked to be a nice day to get airborne!.....where are the bomb racks on those planes??...TX-CudaMinister of Information

[TX-ScubaSteve]

Once again, some great photography there Eco!  In the spirit of formation flying... here's some pics of my younger brother flying a C-172SP in "formation" with myself in a PA28-181 (Piper Archer II) between College Station and San Antonio--about 5 years ago.  He wasn't carrying a camera--so no pics of the archer airborne.





The above picture is just one of personal interest--as someone spelled out "LUECKE" with TREES.

On the way back from San Antonio to Dallas, we stopped at a friends place at Hill Top Lakes--a private community with their own grass strip.  On run-up, the engine ran very rough during a mag check.  I made several attempts to see if it wouldn't clean up, running super lean, restarting the engine, etc... One of the neighbors came over after I finally shut down, and told me he had some tools if I wanted to taxi up to his back yard.  So, that was an interesting experience, pulling up to someone's car garage.  Sure enough, after running the engine on the "bad" mag for a few minutes, I was able to feel with my hand that one cylinder was running cooler than the others, and found the lower plug was oil fouled.  After attempting to clean it a bit, I swapped it around with the upper plug (which was in better over-all condition anyway), where I figured it wouldn't be as prone to oil fouling.  That seemed to make all the difference--and the engine ran smoother than ever.  However, my former passengers refused to fly any further--I guess the loud backfires it had made previously were a little too scary in their memories.  I had a nice evening flight back solo (my bro had flown back to Kansas) w/ my trusty Visor (palm pilot) w/ aviation database and GPS antenna to play with--it worked very well!TX-ScubaSteveWhite 4

[TX-CUDA]

"However, my former passengers refused to fly any further--I guess the loud backfires it had made previously were a little too scary in their memories. I had a nice evening flight back solo (my bro had flown back to Kansas) w/ my trusty Visor (palm pilot) w/ aviation database and GPS antenna to play with--it worked very well!"...I have to tell Ya Steve...I might have been a bit off in getting back into that plane if she was missing a cylinder! Good job with the pics...and better job on the troubleshooting the problem. Nice pics of the home state by the way!.....TX-CudaMinister of Information

[TX-EcoDragon]

Yeah Steve, thanks for the pics, and the story! Dunno what they were worried about. . .you've still got three good cylinders even if your fix didn't do the trick!!!:-PS!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-ScubaSteve]

LOL you guys...  Well, technically I had at least 3.5 cylinders anyway when running both mags (without a fix)...  So yeah, don't know what their problem was. TX-ScubaSteveWhite 4

[TX-EcoDragon]

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/04/08/luecke/From http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/SpatialRes/default5.htm:We also made an empirical estimate of spatial resolution for lower contrast vegetation boundaries. By clearing forest so that a pattern would be visible to landing aircraft, a landowner outside Austin, Texas (see also aerial photo in Lisheron 2000), created a target that is also useful for evaluating spatial resolution of astronaut photographs. The forest was selectively cleared in order to spell the landowner’s name ‘LUECKE’ with the remaining trees (figure 10). According to local surveyors who planned the clearing, the plan was to create letters that were 3100 ´ 1700 ft (944.9 ´ 518.2 m). Photographed at a high altitude relative to most Shuttle missions (543 km) with a 250-mm lens, Formula 3 predicts that each pixel would represent an area 28.6 ´ 36.0 m on the ground (table 5). When original film was digitised at 2400 ppi (10.6 mm/pixel), letters correspond to 29.4 ´ 18.8 pixels for a comparable pixel size of 27 – 32 m. S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO