Formation 101

[Music] i think most folks have heard of formation flying and you know probably think they have a pretty good id idea or hands-on will handle on what it is and what's it for stick with me on flywire as we take a look at formation basics [Music] hi i'm scott purdue and today on flywire we're going to talk about the formation flying to really know what formation is all about well we need to use a building block approach okay we can't you can't fly 30 000 feet until you know how to take off in the air force everyone learns about formation in flight school doesn't matter what you fly the first uh you do formation in the first uh iteration of which fly but to a fighter pilot uh formation is a tool to trade everything revolves around formation everything everything you do all your tactics and all that so here goes i could say that the most complex human activity requires a building block approach to achieve any proficiency at the task so let's start with the basic question what is formation flying well i think the answer is is two or more airplanes flying together and that simplistic version of it the vast majority of the time a formation flight is part of a military mission formations of two or four or even more airplanes flying together to accomplish a particular goal or mission in some instances civilian airplanes fly formations as well but generally the reasons are not quite the same they do photo missions fire fighting uh air shows or just for fun it seems to be a primary reason to do it in civilian world that's what i do nowadays i'm not flying fighters but i still fly formation formation flying comes from the military in world war one the use of aircraft intimately involved in military operations really took off always claimed the point military units had been flying have been using balloons since the u.s civil war for artillery observation reconnaissance and balloons were used for the same purpose in world war one when they started using airplanes the problem with the balloon is that it's not maneuverable it's really big and it's easy to shoot down relatively and if you want to use it again you literally have to tie it in one spot so enter the airplane even for its sp for its day was pretty fast and mobile the military use of the airplane was not advanced in the us when world war one started and besides getting into the war late britain france and germany had been basically developing military aviation at a breakneck speed since the beginning of the war for the basic business of flying fighters we owe a lot to the europeans okay i guess you could say in a way they invented it uh they first used airplanes for artillery support but then quickly expanded they're used to reconnaissance of the enemy lines near the front and then well behind the lines and then they began using them to attack enemy concentrations uh with with bombs homemade hand grenades and airplanes quickly became very important cog in the machine of war as with any military technological development the enemy sought ways to negate that threat aircrew began carrying pistols to shoot at the enemy they even dropped grenades from the cockpit trying to hit another airplane the graduated machine guns uh on swivels and then you know they realize that it's exceedingly difficult to hit another airplane with a bullet while in the air so there's a lot of physics and logistics involved so both fi both sides figured out that fixed forward firing guns machine guns on an airplane that could then maneuver uh to put the gun into a firing solution was the only real answer talk with my hands here i got my sticks this was the birth of fighters on the battlefield the primary purpose of the early fighters was their superiority relatively quickly they were also used against troops on the ground you know machine guns are a pretty potent weapon against infantry or even vehicles even today as fighters began struggling for air superiority individual pilots quickly realized that they needed to travel in groups larger than one and primarily so they have a chance of staying alive more than just a few minutes in the middle of the year the middle of years of world war one the average lifespan of a fighter pilot at the front was measured in days literally a veteran had been flying for a month losses were shall we say hi when you're alone you just can't keep tabs on everything around you and a fighter by itself is extremely vulnerable teamwork means a lot and still does the first formations used were a whole squadron in trail kind of a ladder formation it's pretty hard to maneuver and do anything with a gaggle like that quickly both sides develop the basic formation of three fighters operating together okay basically just like your fingers a vic they often travel in larger packs of entire squadrons with vicks stacked and arranged around each other and one of the principles of war is the concentration of mass at one point to obtain superiority anything over a squadron say 18 to 24 airplanes was pretty unwieldy but it was nevertheless used well into world war ii some brits during the battle of britain thought the answer was to the germans was to a really huge mass formation they call the big wing and it never worked out very well really hard to organize and by the time you did the bad guys are gone already so once an engagement between two opposing forces occurred it quickly broke into a chaos of many versus many in a small confined space we have come to call that a dog fight okay today fighter guys generally call it a fur ball fur balls are dangerous everything happens so quickly that it's hard to cover yourself much less you're wingman you're basically on your own a snap gun shot or even a mid-air mid-error is a real possibility just remember this furballs are hazardous to your health doesn't matter how good you are you can't see everything even and your wingman is doing the same thing so you end up getting stripped uh a more survivable formation and engagement uh was between two small formations you know and then like i said they started off in a vic a three ship formation the job of the wingman was to protect the leader so then he could concentrate on killing the bad guys it didn't always work out that way because you know you have a leader here and you have a wingman here when you're maneuvering uh conflict mid-airs are a problem on your own goal in other words in reality trying to violent maneuver as a three ship was very distracting and often devolved into two airplanes operating together with the third one stripped uh or even all three collision avoidance between the wingmen is very hard and keeping side of all the players is nearly impossible okay so by the way uh bombers and transport airplanes often used formations as well for transport formation was pretty loose but uh it's a way to mask the lift capability in a shorter time span and the takeoffs and landings were complicated but you know you can work it out bombers used formation to concentrate uh their bomb drops and then take advantage of gunners in the airplane supporting airplanes to keep uh fighters at bay so it's for self-defense the big airplanes still use a basic three ship as their go-to formation sometimes very loose by fighter standards just a comment just saying well in the beginning of world war ii virtually everyone used the basic formation of three fighters and in the u.s navy they called them sections a division was made up of two sections three divisions were made made up of squadron the us army was organized in a similar fashion but of course with different names the british ref used vixx all through the battle of britain in the early days of world war ii and they had begun by then to realize that a vic was a lousy way to employ fighters against other fighters but they didn't change it because the in the press of the battle everything was so dire there wasn't enough time they just didn't have time or or resource to change anything they were losing so many folks they had to concentrate on just getting fighters up into the air to meet the germans every time they came across there was no time to do anything else but right after battle britain they pretty much changed to the finger four which came from the germans the germans used the spanish civil war as a proving ground for their new ideas on how to fight the an air war the german luftwaffe developed the finger four as the basic fighter formation one two three four uh and then it would break up into two flights of two when engaged the main idea was that fighters always employed in multiples of two the basic element of fighter flying is was and is two fighters the raf and usaf army air forces adopted these tactics and i think i could make the argument that the us navy might have developed this two ship four ship idea as their own basic formation independently uh they did use it uh very early in the pacific war before a lot of cross training was or cross pollination was happening but they did keep the division of six as the flight breakdown within the squad until something like the middle of 1943 when they dropped it completely the technology has developed at blinding speeds but the basic idea of a formation is still the same as it was in world war one mutual support is that basic idea a two ship is stronger than being alone covering your wingmen is a fundamental tenet of employing airplanes for military mission this thus the common usage term i mean everybody uses it you're women you know gotta cover your wing and etcetera essentially it has come to mean your partner but that's where it came from uh some of you watching this video aspire to fly in the military maybe even fly fighters and a lot of you are civilians and just think it's cool and you know what i'd be the first to agree with you i think it is cool and a lot of fun that's why i still do it it's fun when you get to exercise hard-won skills in an aircraft in a difficult task particularly an airplane but it is decidedly not a game formation is a serious business when you get two or more airplanes in close proximity to each other in the air things well on the ground too things can go horribly wrong in a heartbeat literally that fast mid-air collisions between two airplanes involve so much energy that at least one if not both airplanes crash as a result of a contact it just happens way too often there are strict rules of the road that we have to sign up for in order to earn the right to go home after each flight true one thing about civilian flying formation is that the reason is not the same as a military pilot okay i said that before in a military formation is just one additional skill needed to fly the mission to accomplish the mission for civilians flying together is the only reason to do it it's just for fun there's never a life or death reason to fly formation in the civilian world and i think that changes things a little bit remember what i said about building blocks these rules are a foundational part of flying formation a friend of mine from f4 days a fellow named brad brad hood said it better than i can and see if i get the quote right formation is teamwork and more than any other type of flying it builds confidence and teaches self-reliance and self-discipline discipline is a state of mind an attitude that knows the rules and the parameters and recognizes deviations and makes expeditious controlled corrections i think it sums it up it's really really a good sentence i mean that's the nub of it all formation good for good formation flying does not come easily collision avoidance is the number one task in formation for everybody and the ultimate responsibility uh you have to pay attention that ultimate responsibility for each pilot for the flight lead you must monitor the wingmen during critical phases of flight and be prepared to take evasive action okay and just watch it watch them hate you more than one formation has come to a tragic end with a rejoin gone horribly wrong right up there uh leeds job is to is to fly take into consideration things like all the airplanes in the flight the airspace the turning room traffic the mission the abilities of the least experienced pilot in the flight and it is the hardest job to be a good flight lead and you can only be a good flight lead after considerable experience okay the wingman his basic tenant information is is you have to keep side of the leader at all times or the other players you've got to see the other airplane to avoid hitting it and if you lose sight break away from the last known position or flight path into air that you can clear learn how to avoid the wake keep separation and recognize overtake that's closure right between airplanes you're going to talk a lot about that in 201 there are a lot of other considerations but these are the biggies okay you have to have a good working knowledge of geometry okay you don't need to take the cosine of the tangent here but you have to be able to see and anticipate speed differences and see closure rates radio communications visual signals what actions you do and when have to be standard okay you can't make things up as you go along in formation it's just dangerous for this particular video it's probably not a good idea to get into those specifics okay so in the other two series i'm going to do formation 201 basic formation and then 301 advanced formation i'll get it a little bit deeper on this and we'll have references for you so you could take a look at it maybe not today up on the website but we're going to have them let's look at what formations look like what most people think of as a formation is airplanes close together in a group we generally call that a flight of two or four or more more as a gaggle you have to have formations that apply to a particular objective there are combat okay or operational formations and then there are administrative formations you use when airplanes are close together in a non-threatening area and how do you keep keep together and not be a conflict for somebody else and not hit each other fingertip the basic formation everybody thinks about is going through it's for going through the weather coming up initial for the break things like that and the basic it is the basic format for ship formation you can do it left or right okay you can't have the wingman being fingertip for hours at a time so you use other administration formations like root spread or fluid that allows some more maneuvering echelon is the lined up in a line used to break up a flight to minimize the flight path conflicts either in the pattern or some other reason so this is check out this video of a vic break to a landing do you think that number two on the left here kept side of the leader rob davis leading his team into a spectacular display but suddenly everything is thrown off course and he's forced to eject himself from the plummeting plane it was an extremely loud impact which i could hear above the noise of the engine and my headset and the aircraft was violently thrown onto its side professionalism kicks in and you deal with the situation and in this case to save your life diamond is another administrative formation it's pretty much an air force air show formation i can't think of a single tactical use of a diamond perhaps to screw up the bad guy's sword on your formation but then you're too close together to employ your weapons so it it's a show formation got it trail on the other hand is a good teaching tool for closure cut off energy management you know what geometry looks like in the air uh good stuff to know for rejoins and it's a basic building block for bfm that's basic fighter maneuvering or 1v1 air it takes a while to see what is going on and process it you can't just watch a youtube video and you got it okay or you do it once in the air i call formations that i just talked about administrative formations because they're used to maneuver the flight in a friendly environment on an approach through the weather it's at a traffic pattern or after the mission as you head home they aren't good for tactical employment against someone who wants to kill you for tactical employment you need the ability to maneuver every airplane quickly and under high g without hitting each other while about worrying about hitting each other and you have to either attack or defend and in world war ii the basic two ship formation for this was fighting wing in the jet age fighting wing just didn't work out very well and in the u.s air force tactical became the standard combat formation although i will say that fighting winning evolved into fluid and there is some utility for that uh as a force ship but the big disadvantage for the wingman is is he doesn't get a six o'clock uh monitor so it has to be a low air threat environment for some reason and for a two ship i'd say that's probably night time yeah if you're doing uh mpgs or flare or something like that the wall formation is another four ship formation that can be a lot of fun and you do that to maximize your long range missile shots you get the sort not interfere with each other that's the best way to do it eagles love this kind of formation but it isn't great formation at the merge and there's not much utility for it in civilian flying even orbits okay not don't have to deconflict the shots there is two ship tactical and then four ship uh a box commonly known as the container for reasons i'm not going to go in here but this is pretty much the standard combat formation in the air force not sure what the navy's doing these days uh it is more of a leader leader engagement concept okay so we're basically a line of breast and then we're going to engage that way depends on who's in the right position you can see that the formation is not a simple thing in military in the military there's a lot to learn here and it has to become second nature in the civilian world we generally fly formation maneuvers that are a small subset of what you do in the military and since it's for fun folks generally stop at the administrative formations which in my view is too bad because the tactical is a lot of fun and it is the only way you can build up to air to error because you know we can still do that the fast program is meant to issue credentials to pilots so they can fly formation in waivered airspace realize the sole purpose of these fast organizations is to do formation and air shows and as such their approaches are focused on that there are several different fast associated organizations out there usually dedicated to one type of airplane but that is their purpose is flying on air shows it's not necessarily teaching you so you know formation although they think it is before i finish i'd like to mention that there are manuals there are manuals out there to read and familiar familiarize yourself with before you fly flying is expensive and to maximize your training time in the air you need to do some homework before the brief and i'm rather partial to the fighter formation fundamentals written again by brad hood uh you can find it on the website i'll put the link right down here for you to go check that out as well as squadron standards you have to have a standard way of approaching some of those administrative formation things and things like that well i hope you liked the video and if you did hit like and subscribe it looks like this a bit here and i'd like to thank my patreon supporters here as well i really appreciate your support and if you'd like to support the channel yourself i'll leave a link below to the flywire patreon page okay before i go uh i do want to get a little deeper into combat tactics at some point i have a plan for doing that but i'm saving that for part of my fighter pilot debrief the historical review series that i'm doing the next videos in this series is going to be formation 201 and 301 that's basic in advanced what it looks like kind of how to do it a little bit so stay tuned thanks for watching and we'll see you next time on flywire

Channel: FlyWire- scott perdue

Views: 9,057

Keywords: Formation 101, Fighter Pilot debriefs, Flywire, flywire online, flywire youtube, scott perdue, aircraft carrier, air force, marine, US Navy, army air corps, military, aircraft, fighter pilot, bomber pilot, aviation movie, military movie, history, aviation history, science fiction, novelist, fighter jet, flywire scott purdue, formation, flying formation, formation introduction

Id: GPOS86zYUhE

Length: 21min 26sec (1286 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022