January 15, 2005 - RV Flight!
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Well, I finally flew in an RV. I hardly know what to say. Wow.
Unbelievable. Stunning. I loved it. The RV is like a
sports car compared to the Citabria pick-up truck. And what a flight
-- close formation with three other aircraft. Needless to say, I
can't wait I fly one of my own.
The Mid-Atlantic RV
Vultures Formation Team put on a formation ground school flying
weekend located at Millville Airport, New Jersey (MIV).
They wanted us there by 9AM so I got up early, drove out to Essex Skypark,
and prepared the Citabria in the cold and dark. It was a easy 45
minute flight over to Millville, crossing both the Chesapeake Bay and
Delaware River.
The morning consisted of a two-hour formation ground school in the
Millville Jet Center hangar using one of the best PowerPoint shows I've
ever seen. Then
we broke for a catered box-lunch lunch. I'm not a big box-lunch fan
but this one was excellent. During lunch they gave
out door prizes. They had received so donations many that virtually
every attendee got a prize of some sort. I won a Millville Jet
Center mug, an LED pen-flashlight, a pilot's logbook and two Experimental
stickers. Not bad! The afternoon was the highlight though.
They gave formation flight rides to virtually everyone who wanted one!
They had a big turnout, approximately 100 people attended. I'm
going to say 40-50 planes flew in. A lot of RVs, of course, but also
Long-EZs, Grummans, a Glassair and a Lancair, plus of course the Citabria. The
weather was good -- for flying -- but too cold good for standing around
outside. There was plenty of time to talk with other pilots
and builders. The whole thing was exceptionally well
organized and most enjoyable. Joe "Zack" Czachorowski, Frank "Snip"
Pullano and many others deserve a lot of credit for their hard work and
effort putting on such a great event. The Millville Jet Center were
great hosts, as well. |
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More RVs. You can see the Long-EZs at the end of the line.
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and more RVs. |
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The mighty Citabria.
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| This is the RV-6 I flew in,
belonging to Mike Rollison. |
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| Taxiing out. We were number
two in a flight of four. The flight leader was Stu McCurdy. Stu
is the founder of organized GA and Experimental formation flying, which is
growing in popularity. After my flight, I can understand why. He
runs Formation
Flying Inc. (FFI), the FAA-approved issuer of non-aerobatic, non-warbird
formation-flying credentials There were five four-ship formations all taxiing or taking off around the
same time. There were a couple Cessna's doing their pre-takeoff
run-ups between two formation flights. I wondered what they must be
thinking. All these airplanes moving around in formation isn't
something you see everyday. |
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Just after takeoff. It took me a few minutes to get used to flying
so close to another aircraft. I must admit, I was a little nervous
at first. Mike's a great stick; he obviously knew what he was doing
and could really handle his RV. This kind of flying is on a whole
different level than anything I've ever experienced.. |
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I felt like I was in World War II on a fighter sweep. It was just
awesome.
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Flying this close to other aircraft is unreal; then we started doing 45
degree turns and wingovers ... you gotta be kidding me! |
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Perfect day for it.
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| Notice our angle relative to the
ground. |
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| Now we're in a diving turn. |
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Then we moved to a trail formation, where everyone follows the airplane in
front of them. You always stay a little below the plane your flying
formation on, never above or at the same altitude. My camera doesn't
have a zoom; we are really close here. By now I was getting used to
it. |
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Another diving turn. The pilot really works hard when flying
formation.
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Approaching the overhead break. The lead aircraft is on our left.
The break was cool. The lead gives the signal, then rolls 90 degrees
and turns to the left. We count two seconds, then roll 90 degrees,
pull 2 Gs, chop the power to idle. The G's cause our speed to drop
rapidly which is good because we need to slow down enough to be able to
lower the flaps. (The only time I pull G's in the Citabria is when
doing a loop. But the RVs are so fast, if you do a hard turn,
you pull G's.) We fly downwind a little, then turn into a continuous
base -final. Mike makes a nice wheel landing and the ride is over.
My thoughts on the RV? It's a little fighter plane. Fast,
nimble -- I've never flown in a GA plane like it. There's just no
comparison with a Cessna or Citabria. No wonder they are so popular. |
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