How are people maintaining those close tight formation distances in multiplayer FSX?

 

Is there some speed match autopilot option?

 

How do aircraft do this IRL???

 

Like Blue Angels

Visual references and fingertip touch on the controls. Pick a spot on your lead aircraft and watch it closely to maintain position.

I guess it is little easier IRL - You have huge screen, more sounds, more depth of view and You risk more that starting again from active.

When flying straight and level, You should pre-brief an altitude, direction and speed. For slowing down, just retract Your power a tiny bit. When turning smoke system, the leader said 'smokers...' (then You put Your finger on smoke activator) 'one' - that's the time You flip the switch.

'Smokers...' 'Two' and You do not have Your back 'on fire'. Also, it helps a lot if You pre-brief the bank angles in turns, the rate of turn and other parameters, which will help You keeping 'tied' to the frontman.

Oh wow I see

The greatest thing to help my formation flying in DCS A10 and Rise of Flight was the addition of TrackIR to my setup.

I learned how to fly formation with a friend a few months ago. The way he taught me was very gentle control input and gentle throttle adjustments.

 

After a few weeks of practice, we had mastered it together!

Here are two older but very good articles on formation flying by Tony Vallillo:

 

http://www.flightsim.com/main/howto/form.htm

http://www.flightsim.com/main/howto/form2.htm

 

A few points are crucial:

• Lead should perform all maneuvers as smooth as possible
  
• Take lead as your horizon; NEVER loose sight of lead.
  
• Make smooth adjustments and as soon as you observe first indications of the desired effect reduce the adjustment.
  

 

And don't expect to do anything like the Blue Angles soon. They are amazing and it takes years of practice to be that good.

 

Here's a video I recently did

 

 

It's just simple pattern work in a two ship formation with a pretty large distance (so that I can handle it) but it was great fun.

You line up two parts of the lead aircraft with one part on yours, and then try to keep that picture. For example, you could try and keep a rivet on your canopy frame in line with the other aircraft's wingtip, and then try and keep that wingtip on the other aircraft in line with his canopy. That's typically how you maintain a formation spot; if all three parts maintain the same relationship, you will not be moving around in relation to the other aircraft.

 

Most formation flying is properly briefed for speed, headings etc, but what also helps is radio comms, such as 'rolling left in, one, two, three, go'. You can also watch the control surfaces on the other aircraft to see what corrections are being made, since they invariably happen a moment before they have an effect. I found when I was learning in real life how to maintain a formation spot with another aircraft, that overcontrolling was the main issue when learning, you need to loosen up on the stick a lot and then make really tiny corrections, then cancel them out quickly. Subtlety is the key, most of the time, the aircraft will stay there of its own accord so long as you are not overcontrolling. It took me a few goes to get it, but once you know the trick, its actually not as tough as you would imagine.

 

Al

Another thing that does help is a good throttle which makes speed control easier.

Ah so the second link with using the FSrecorder ai trick is what people are using in their youtube vids and claiming it was real multiplayer formation flying.

Ah so the second link with using the FSrecorder ai trick is what people are using in their youtube vids and claiming it was real multiplayer formation flying.

 

You still have to fly the formation. FSRecorder is a very convenient tool for practicing