Formation Flying - B2OSH Training

It is absolutely mandatory that each pilot have a minimum of three hours formation practice in the six months prior to B2OSH.

Wayne Collins, the founder of this group, has likened the safety issue to flying an approach to minimums on a dark and stormy night. Just as you would not fly such an approach without the appropriate skills, so you should not contemplate this formation flight without the requisite skills. It is inappropriate to subject yourself, your passengers, the safety of other planes/passengers and the future of B2OSH to inadequate preparation. For those first-timers, do not be dismayed by this admonition.

With adequate formation practice the formation flight into Oshkosh is exhilarating and an experience to remember forever.

Training Options

Three options for obtaining the necessary experience and practice are Regional Clinics and Practice Sessions, The Airmen and on your own. I urge you to review each and make your own decision regarding what will best serve your needs. Certainly avail yourself of more than one avenue if you are able.

Training Documents

The T-34 Formation Flight Manual and the Bonanza Addendum is required for all. It is available in PDF format.

The Bonanza Specific Addendum available on this web site should be printed and added to the manual. Also very highly recommended is the Darton International video "Formation Flying - The Art". This may also be ordered from the T-34 Association. It is an outstanding ground school, approximately 6 hours long, and includes extensive video airborne footage demonstrating all the techniques and maneuvers. There is enough here to improve even the experienced formation pilot's skills and is very highly recommended. NEBG members may obtain the video on loan from the NEBG video library.

2004 Training Meeting

At a meeting just prior to B2Osh 2004 a group of pilots who exhibited intense dedication to this endeavor met to discuss our future direction. One of the decisions was to formalize the training to specific levels. Eventually a Formation Training Manual will evolve. Meanwhile there has been much discussion regarding the necessity of rejoin as a basic formation maneuver and the need to master all 2-ship formation skills prior to embarking on 4-ship training. Much insight has come from Wayne Collins, an outstanding formation pilot and the force behind B2Osh, from Mike Babler, former military pilot and lead instructor at Grayson, John "Weebs" Wiebener, former F-16 squadron commander and highly experienced formation pilot and instructor and from Jim Averett, former USAF formation instructor. To give you an idea of where we are going, please read the following important comments:

In February 2005 Wayne Collins wrote these very apt words of wisdom echoed by all of the above:

In The first B2Osh flight was made when I invited others to join me in flying together so we might camp together. I knew each pilot personally and their abilities, and I felt safe flying with them. After writing about it in the magazine 35 wanted to join the next year. Most I did not know. All said they could fly formation. We met at Rockford and, with Hank Canterbury agreeing to lead, we worked out a plan to fly together to Oshkosh. Despite my year long efforts, AirVenture refused to recognize we would be flying in as a group. On arrival they changed our runway after we were on right base to 27. The next year, after conversation with Tom Poberezney, we were recognized as a group or formation flight and assigned Runway 36. Taking pilots at their word on their pilot and formation skills, and with a whopping $5 total registration fee, the group grew to the 1995 world record. Looking back, the World Record Flight was not in the ball park of the standards we require today. As a result of the safety glitches we saw in that flight we started looking for formation training for Bonanza Pilots and a process to offer and to require formation training to make the flight. Each year, to improve safety and have a more professional and enjoyable flight, a flight all can say they were proud to be participants, we have been more selective in requiring formation training and practice.

First Point:

Recent e-mail exchanges between lead formation instructors discussed the skills required to join one aircraft to another forming a two ship formation. We seem to have agreed that understanding and executing successful two ship rejoins is necessary for a pilot to understand the fundamentals of safe formation flying. Through the dedication of time and expense of many pilots in B2Osh a program has been developed to give pilots that desire to fly in B2Osh the minimum formation training necessary free of charge except for overhead and meals. Requiring the minimum training is selective, not exclusive. In my opinion any Bonanza Pilot should be honored to have a safety pilot fly with him free to assist him in developing safe formation skills. Any Bonanza Pilot that does not have the time for free formation training does not have the time for B2Osh.

Second Important Point:

When pilots are taught formation training in the Military they are in their early 20's. Ninety-nine percent of B2Osh pilots that start formation training in a Bonanza, according to society aging terminology, are middle aged; many are on the upside of middle age. Training should be paced and all phases of two ship work including rejoins and lazy eights should be mastered before progressing to 4 ship.

We are more selective but the door is always open to a Pilot that desires to have the pilot skills for a safe flight and to say he is a part of B2Osh. A Bonanza or Baron pilot having flown to Oshkosh 3 times with little or no formation training and no practice in between does not automatically qualify as a pilot for the next year. If a secretary calls me for a reservation for her boss for the Grayson Clinic my answer will be: "If your boss does not have to time to call me, he does not have time for the clinic." The two worst cases of B2Osh flights were reservations I received from secretaries. One bent a wing and one moved out of the formation and then cut back in front of other planes. Both were not truthful about their formation skills on their mailed in reservations.

It is my desire that every pilot that wants the experience of B2Osh have the opportunity to do so. It is also my desire that they are proud of the privilege of making the flight knowing the pilots they fly with are professional, safe and are qualified to make the B2Osh flight. I congratulate the group for working toward standardized Bonanza Pilot Formation skills for all taking part in the greatest annual Formation Flight of civilian aircraft in the world. We have progressed from a gaggle to a formation and we can still do better.

Safe Flying, Wayne

What follows are some pithy comments I have extracted from several of Weebs' e-mails:

Seconding what Wayne wrote, formation flying really is an ART, and not a SCIENCE.

Many times over the years, at B2OSH or the formation clinics – new folks have introduced new “ideas” and “perspectives” on what we are doing. I try to make sure we continually evaluate new ideas and “formulas” for their merit and then incorporate them if the “mousetrap is a better mousetrap” - or explain why it’s not.

I too REALLY don’t want a new formation trainee to be concentrating on anything other than listening to his/her safety pilot and looking outside during a formation rejoin. If you start the rejoin with proper altitude, attitude, and airspeed, and leave the throttle alone – you WILL be successful in the rejoin just using angular velocity (i.e. cutoff). The ART of that rejoin becomes recognizing when you are acute or sucked, and correcting it. The ART also allows you to have some liberty in heading crossing angle alignment (fancy word for fuselage alignment) and using your 3-dimensional skills to adjust accordingly to “slide right in”. Pushing the throttle in for increased airspeed is a “bonus” and one of the artistic liberties you have!

[Editorial comment: Basic Break and Rejoin is an exercise in geometry using angular cut-off to catch up. All aircraft maintain the same speed and it should be the speed used prior to the "break" and while in trail. Only after mastering this should minor throttle changes be considered.]

If anyone in this group doesn’t think that we are still in our “infancy” of formation flying in the Bonanza group – you are DEAD wrong. We have only just begun to understand all the dynamics of formation flying.

Make sure when you are formation flying that you set an objective or two in your brief (for that flight) and then make sure you accomplish that objective. Keep the number of objectives to a minimum. I have seen the best success when a flight sets out to accomplish just one objective – REALLY WELL – for that flight, than flights that want to “do it all”. That’s the way we do it in the military and it’s also the way FAST does their teaching.

I have worried since undertaking the formation “mentor” role in 1995 that we are being too generous in our graduation rate from the clinics. I get real antsy trying to train a new pilot in the art of formation flying when I know for a fact that they are a horrible pilot to start with. We can beat around the bush about this – but we all have been safety pilots during clinics with folks that honestly had no business being in the air, let alone in a Bonanza, let alone in a formation. I agree that if attendees don’t have the time to prepare and the fortitude to be mentally ready for formation training – we should call a spade a spade. I applauded one highly experienced pilot a couple of years ago at Grayson when he flat out admitted after his morning of flying that he “wasn’t ready for this.” I wish more folks had the fortitude to admit they shouldn’t be there.

We need to refocus our training effort. We have let the “FFI Card” become a honor badge of sorts. We really need to get back to the basics of mastering 2-ship formation skills, before forming up into 4-ships.

Pacific Bonanza Society ▪ 25316 Stageline Dr, Laguna Hills, CA 92653 ▪ Phone: (949) 322-4397