Formation Flying

[Bdreher1982 0]

Looking for folks to fly with in formation on XC trips. Maybe a leg a day. i prefer to fly on Vatsim since it support multi platform flying. My home airport is kmgm but willing to start anywhere. We can discuss when the time comes. I have all three platforms.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Hey,

 

What type of aircraft are you using?

 

Are you looking to actually fly formation (right/left echelon, trail, etc.) or just a group of people flying 10nm to 20nm apart from and to the same airport?  If the former, I'm sure you know the VATSIM Regs (see MARSA on the VATSIM Special Ops page HERE) for such a flight. If the latter, I fly with a small group who does this all the time. We're most active on weekends, and often fly shared cockpit in the Dash 8/Q400 Professional (not released yet), the Airbus A320 series, and the Maddog.  We'll soon be testing a Boeing 717 as well.

 

In addition to the Shared Cockpit flights, we also fly single cockpit in the 737, 757, 767 and 777.  From time to time we'll also fly the Citation X which is fun to fly cross country.

 

Hope this is helpful!

[Bdreher1982 0]

Hey,

 

What type of aircraft are you using?

 

Are you looking to actually fly formation (right/left echelon, trail, etc.) or just a group of people flying 10nm to 20nm apart from and to the same airport? If the former, I'm sure you know the VATSIM Regs (see MARSA on the VATSIM Special Ops page HERE) for such a flight. If the latter, I fly with a small group who does this all the time. We're most active on weekends, and often fly shared cockpit in the Dash 8/Q400 Professional (not released yet), the Airbus A320 series, and the Maddog. We'll soon be testing a Boeing 717 as well.

 

In addition to the Shared Cockpit flights, we also fly single cockpit in the 737, 757, 767 and 777. From time to time we'll also fly the Citation X which is fun to fly cross country.

 

Hope this is helpful!

I would like to fly close formation but I'm really up for about anything. I wasn't able to find much in those regs you posted about non-military or non-commercial formation flying. I'm interested in the shared cockpit flying and the group flights. What does a shared cockpit flight entail? My weekend flying is just about non-existent.

 

I have almost the entire DHC line from the turbo beaver up to the 800-Q400(freeware), ATR 42&72, 737, 321, C130, B1900, P3D v2.5 stock, FSX stock, and many more. Though I don't have the more popular jetliners like 757, 767, 777, 787. They are just too much $ for me right now.

Sorry for all the edits, I am really tired.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Nice to hear back from you!

 

The MARSA regulations actually apply to civilian aircraft as well, the term "MARSA" is based on the military because they most often flew/fly formations.

 

Flying formation on VATSIM is technically (not operationally) problematic because aircraft positions of the other (human controlled) aircraft you see aren't updated fast enough when flying in very close proximity to one another.  We've tried it many times and have never been able to resolve this, even when using different P2P settings in our pilot client (we use FSINN).  I'm not sure how the Virtual Military guys get this to work on VATSIM, or if they are even able to.

 

Shared Cockpit (can also be called Connected Flight Deck) is two people sharing the same aircraft. Some of the default FSX aircraft are shared cockpit capable, and there are several payware aircraft that have custom shared cockpit capability.  The latter is what we fly.  We don't generally fly non-payware aircraft, though from time to time we do a default Baron shared cockpit flight.

 

There is a link to the group I fly with in my signature. Anyone can fly with the group, however for Shared Cockpit flights one must be a member. The group is a private (non-public) group with specific membership requirements (they're on the webpage), though again one does not have to be a member to join us for flights.

 

I hope this information has been helpful to you! If you Google Shared Cockpit, and separately Connected Flight Deck, you'll find a lot of good information.

[Bdreher1982 0]

Thanks Dave, Ill be looking into it.

 

I can see how the close proximity could be problematic. How close have you been able to get? I'm not sure I could fly military style formation flying anyway. Maybe a 100'-200' would be ideal I guess.

 

When a group of us go flying real world, we maintain safe visual separation at roughly 50'-150' apart as we are not trained to fly a formal formation. I am looking to do the same on the sim if allowed on Vatsim.

 

All your info is very much appreciated. Thanks again! 

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

It's been sometime since I've tried, but I seem to recall about 10nm was fine.  I can't remember what range the aircraft positions became weird (you'll see the other aircraft ahead of you, but he'll see himself ahead of you as well).

[hecrowell 3]

It's not likely that you will have much luck flying close formation on the VATSIM network. Whrn flying close to another aircraft, that aircraft jumps around terribly.

 

Why not consider flying with our Bluebirds Aerial Demonstration Team? We fly Multiplayer mode via direct connect to my hosted session.

 

Email me at hecrowell@gmail.com

 

HC