Nan Chang CJ-6A mid-air LA County

Lindberg said:
Details?
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Google brought up an article about two planes, a Nanchang and a yak 52 Cessna. One fatality. God knows what the actual facts are, but there is a picture of a crashed cj6
 
I’m in Redstar Pilots Association (RPA) and got an email from the recent President. The deceased is Ryder “Hammer” Adams, who had just assumed the role of interim RPA president. No other details. Very sad to hear.
 
Formation gone bad, most likely. If you look at the photos it looks like one plane had a chewed up prop and the other had a chewed up tail.
 
Lindberg said:
Some info here:

www.cbsnews.com

One person killed after mid-air collision between two planes in Lancaster

Authorities say a mid-air collision with two planes resulted in one person being killed in Lancaster.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

Complete speculation on my part, but based on the types, I'm guessing a formation attempt gone badly.
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Well they did meet up. Having never even contemplated it, what’s so dangerous about formation flying? I get that Blue Angel-style up-close stuff is a different thing, but say, two friends doing this in somewhat close formation. What are the big issues?
 
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mryan75 said:
Well they did meet up. Having never even contemplated it, what’s so dangerous about formation flying? I get that Blue Angel-style up-close stuff is a different thing, but say, two friends doing this in somewhat close formation. What are the big issues?
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If done correctly, there are none. Like most anything else. But especially when learning things can go wrong. The red stars fly pretty tight. 3 feet spacing when everyone is carded. This hits home. I spent this weekend flying at a red star formation clinic in Waycross ga.
 
Salty said:
If done correctly, there are none. Like most anything else. But especially when learning things can go wrong. The red stars fly pretty tight. 3 feet spacing when everyone is carded. This hits home. I spent this weekend flying at a red star formation clinic in Waycross ga.
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Not a lot of wiggle room. I just wonder if the risk is worth the reward for weekend warriors.
 
Salty said:
If done correctly, there are none. Like most anything else. But especially when learning things can go wrong. The red stars fly pretty tight. 3 feet spacing when everyone is carded. This hits home. I spent this weekend flying at a red star formation clinic in Waycross ga.
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The primary issue is there are at least two airplanes in close proximity to one another. Any sort of distraction or an abrupt movement could result in a collision. Saying there are no issues if done correctly is like saying no landing will go badly if done correctly or aerobatics are perfectly safe if done correctly. It's a tautology.
 
It’s one of those things where the normal panic response is the WRONG thing to do in a bad situation. And bad situations come along very subtly.

If you maintain large spacing, there are very large corrections needed, that can cause these bad situations. A turn into coming right to mind. The power reduction to stay in position is BIG.

If you fly close, well, you’re very close to another plane, that gives you precious little time to react.

So to do it in a safety mitigated fashion, you need a lot of training AND experience. Your normal reactions aren’t gonna help a ton, and you need to be able to anticipate a ton of new to you stuff, both as lead and wing.

Military guys are taught formation during their formative hours.
 
mryan75 said:
Well they did meet up. Having never even contemplated it, what’s so dangerous about formation flying? I get that Blue Angel-style up-close stuff is a different thing, but say, two friends doing this in somewhat close formation. What are the big issues?
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It's like anything else in flying. It is a skill that requires specific training to know how to do correctly and how to recover safely when someone makes a mistake. Compare it with stall/spin training. If you don't know or don't remember to handle the plane correctly, you'll pull back when you should push forward and crash. Formation just has a lot more moving parts than a stall, including coordination with the other pilots.
 
I have seen the red star group many times at KPTV, they come up for formation clinic almost every year, Very nice group of guys and act very professionally in the air, R.I.P
 
For homebuilts, 38% of the midair collisions involve formation flying.

These two airplanes weren't homebuilts, of course, but it illustrates the risk....

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
For homebuilts, 38% of the midair collisions involve formation flying.

These two airplanes weren't homebuilts, of course, but it illustrates the risk....

Ron Wanttaja
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What's the total count of midair's? to be honest, I feel like that's pretty low. Why else are we having so many midair collisions?
 
I spend more time in formation than most people. One of the reasons I chose my 182 as a photo plane is that I sit up front. I've got a photo pilot flying my plane for me, but I'm also a pilot and sitting at the controls, so I can react quickly if something goes wrong. We're close, but we're not as close as guys flying formation for airshows.

Also, if I'm shooting more than one airplane, I expect them to have formation experience. I can warn them if I don't like something they're doing, but I can't keep them safe from each other. I can't begin to imagine how devastated I would be seeing something like that.
 
mryan75 said:
Not a lot of wiggle room. I just wonder if the risk is worth the reward for weekend warriors.
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A provocative rhetorical question to be sure. Though I have my opinion on it, the answer is of little import to me. The one thing I do value and I'm willing to state publicly, is I support the right of recreationalists to kill themselves in the gratuitous pursuit of recreation.

As someone who just wants to keep solo flight legal (I'd wouldn't be a pilot if it was outlawed), I'd be a hypocrite if I championed for the banning of aerobatics or formation in civil aviation.

As someone who flies close formation for a living? yeah my formation days are prob over once I hang up the G-suit. I wouldn't trust any of these randos on my wing, without an ejection seat, mickey mouse "cards" or not.


Salty said:
Why else are we having so many midair collisions?
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Oh that's easy, it ought to be self-evident: Class E pattern entry/sequencing kerfuffles/bufoonery. Which is my point though; we can't ban everything that causes death up in here. Otherwise all we'd have in aviation is a bunch of nancies who couldn't upset recover out of a spilled canada dry on their traytable in cruise. Kids need heroes, and heroes die.
 
@hindsight2020 wrote:

As someone who just wants to keep solo flight legal (I'd wouldn't be a pilot if it was outlawed)…


Let’s be honest, wouldn’t be a pilot? Wouldn’t be a LEGAL pilot? Just sayin…
 
Salty said:
Google brought up an article about two planes, a Nanchang and a yak 52 Cessna. One fatality. God knows what the actual facts are, but there is a picture of a crashed cj6
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A yak 62 Cessna?
 
Salty said:
What's the total count of midair's? to be honest, I feel like that's pretty low. Why else are we having so many midair collisions?
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Total EAB aircraft involved in midairs from 1998 through 2022 is 51. That's about 1% of all EAB accidents. Nineteen of the 51 aircraft were RVs, it's 2.7% of their total accidents. However, Cessna 172 midairs were 3.6% of their total accidents. Few formation accidents, though.

Eighteen of the 51 EAB aircraft were involved in homebuilt v. homebuilt midairs, so the actual number of homebuilt midair cases is in the low 40s.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Total EAB aircraft involved in midairs from 1998 through 2022 is 51. That's about 1% of all EAB accidents. Nineteen of the 51 aircraft were RVs, it's 2.7% of their total accidents. However, Cessna 172 midairs were 3.6% of their total accidents. Few formation accidents, though.

Eighteen of the 51 EAB aircraft were involved in homebuilt v. homebuilt midairs, so the actual number of homebuilt midair cases is in the low 40s.

Ron Wanttaja
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Thanks!
 
mryan75 said:
Well they did meet up. Having never even contemplated it, what’s so dangerous about formation flying? I get that Blue Angel-style up-close stuff is a different thing, but say, two friends doing this in somewhat close formation. What are the big issues?
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You don't know what you don't know.

Formation flying is NOT something you just go out and try.
 
Pinecone said:
You don't know what you don't know.

Formation flying is NOT something you just go out and try.
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These guys did not just go out and try it. These were pilots who've been attending clinics and flying formation for years. Some can question the quality and value of that, but this wasn't a case of let's just try formation flying.
 
Lindberg said:
These guys did not just go out and try it. These were pilots who've been attending clinics and flying formation for years. Some can question the quality and value of that, but this wasn't a case of let's just try formation flying.
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True. The Red Stars have very thorough, FAA approved procedures and they treat it very seriously.

As I said, I just got back yesterday from spending 3 days at one of their clinics, so I can speak to that directly. I have not yet piloted in any formation flights because I'm not yet properly prepared to do so. I did spend time in the back seat during training missions, which is one of the techniques used to prepare. I also spent time studying the procedures manual. They consider proper vetting critical to keeping themselves safe.
 
There’s an ADS-B track out there that disappears fairly closely to the apparent time and location of the midair. However, there isn’t a tail number matched to that ADS-B code, so it’s unverified whether it was one of them. That target seems to have been going southeast bound and skirting the SW corner of R-2515, over Rosamond Dry Lake when the signal dropped. Last known groundspeed and altitude was 129 at 7500’.

At the same time, there was a Siller S-64 opposite direction at ~3000, a Cirrus to their 3-4 o’clock descending through 5000, a C-130 that had been doing pattern work at PMD, then was nearly opposite direction and a few miles, 1-2 o’clock, climbing up to 7000 for some holding over WJF. Several other aircraft in that general block as well.

Tl;dr: the airspace was pretty busy.
 
Flying Keys said:
There’s an ADS-B track out there that disappears fairly closely to the apparent time and location of the midair. However, there isn’t a tail number matched to that ADS-B code, so it’s unverified whether it was one of them. That target seems to have been going southeast bound and skirting the SW corner of R-2515, over Rosamond Dry Lake when the signal dropped. Last known groundspeed and altitude was 129 at 7500’.

At the same time, there was a Siller S-64 opposite direction at ~3000, a Cirrus to their 3-4 o’clock descending through 5000, a C-130 that had been doing pattern work at PMD, then was nearly opposite direction and a few miles, 1-2 o’clock, climbing up to 7000 for some holding over WJF. Several other aircraft in that general block as well.

Tl;dr: the airspace was pretty busy.
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It's procedure to turn off all but one transponder in a formation flight. I'm not sure how well the adsb tracking apps cope with that.
 
Lindberg said:
These guys did not just go out and try it. These were pilots who've been attending clinics and flying formation for years. Some can question the quality and value of that, but this wasn't a case of let's just try formation flying.
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The pilot who was killed was definitely experienced at formation flying and in that aircraft type. He was a part of “Tiger Squadron”, which is a group of RPA pilots who do even more advanced stuff. He’s about halfway down this page (Ryder Adams):

www.tigersquadron.com

Tiger Squadron - Our Team

in Torrance manufactures top quality products.
www.tigersquadron.com www.tigersquadron.com
 
I got an intro to formation from our next-door neighbor, who has 4,000+ hours in F-16s, instructor pilot, etc. It’s a lot of fun and a lot of work, and it was immediately apparent what the hazards are. Definitely not an activity for someone who isn’t focused, serious, and willing to accept being a beginner and putting in the work to train up to it. I wouldn’t do it impromptu or with someone who isn’t qualified.

I was all set to do a proper formation training course when we decided to move up from an RV to a bigger plane, so that’s done for unless something changes.
 
My brother flys in a formation team. They do volunteer event flyovers in the Abilene area. While it’s revived his love of flying, it’s not something I’d ever do. I had enough close calls flying formation with pilots that fly formation daily. No way I’d do it with weekend warriors with different types of aircraft / experience.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
The pilot who was killed was definitely experienced at formation flying and in that aircraft type. He was a part of “Tiger Squadron”, which is a group of RPA pilots who do even more advanced stuff. He’s about halfway down this page (Ryder Adams):

www.tigersquadron.com

Tiger Squadron - Our Team

in Torrance manufactures top quality products.
www.tigersquadron.com www.tigersquadron.com
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Yeah, I rode in his backseat at what may have been his first All Red Star.
 
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