ALS flyover - Poteet, Texas April 4, 2009

Yesterday while in flight I saw the CAF B-24 'Ole 927 on it's way to Victoria - but didn't get a picture.
Today, I was flying the Stinson L-5 and saw several other L-birds in the air - in deliberate close proximity. We were asked to fly-over the opening ceremonies at the Poteet, Texas Strawberry Festival. We put up a three-ship formation and I was flying trail, as I am not fully formation qualified yet. I did get to do a little formation practice on the way back to the field. 'Twas a nice day. The pictures are from my camera, but I had an onboard observer who took the shots you see here.


My "desk" for the day


Part of the fair grounds


Flying in trail


That's a big strawberry!


Along side the formation


The V from front right quadrant


Easing into position for formation practice - Echelon Right


Pulling back up for photos while the formation breaks to land


And flying to the west of the runway while the rest of the aircraft land.

For those of you who'd like to see tighter formations - well, we haven't had much practice time yet this year, and with the lighter wing loadings of the L-birds we tend to be a bit more conservative as a good bit of turbulence or thermal can really affect your position. On the one pass over our field they said it looked pretty good and I was pretty happy with how tight we were, which is better than the pictures I've posted (I wasn't shooting the pictures).

Ryan

Great pics, Ryan! Do all those cubs have radios in them? How do you communicate for the formation?

Yes, we have radios. We also use hand and aircraft signals such as dipping a wing in the direction of the turn.

Ryan