Formation Flying Clinic FRIDAY

This formation flying clinic had been on my calendar for months... but as usual in the busy season, I felt like real estate work had me by the collar and was threatening to not let me leave town.

There is nothing quite like 3 different home inspections (complete with issues) to resolve by midnight on Friday, when you want to leave town Friday morning and fly all day!  Lucky for me, all of it was mostly under control, my clients are super cool and we have this magic internet thing!  :-)

The formation flying clinic is a prerequisite to registering for Bonanzas to Oshkosh 2012.  I am going to co-pilot N303B for this event in July, so I figured it would be a good idea for me to get comfortable with other aircraft flying in close proximity.

Friday morning at the crack of dawn (or so it seemed), Mark and I packed Bonanza N303B with enough luggage to imply a longer-than-the-weekend stay and took off.

I was PIC - but Mark had been the one to do all the planning and pre-flighting, while I worked.  Thanks Mark!  The flight over was 1.8 hours of smooth, beautiful air at 12,500 feet +/- 60 feet :-)  It was easy flying and I loved the newness of flying in the mountains.

Along the way I was getting "mountain flying" lessons:

• Approaching a peak/saddle at a 45 degree angle to allow for easily turning around, before or after clearing it.
• Flying down one side of a valley, closer to terrain than you would think, to allow room to turn less sharply, as needed.
• How to tell if I was going to clear a peak, but monitoring a bug spot on the windscreen.

Landing in Pagosa Springs (KPSO), we were met by the organizer, Jim Lane, who ushered us into the conference room where a briefing was already underway.  In fact, within 20 minutes, Mark was part of a "walk through" which outlined the plan for his first 2012 formation clinic flight.  

And 15 minutes later we were flying.  It was an effort for everyone to get a flight in, before the afternoon heated up and brought with it, turbulence.  I think we were too late. 

The combination of turbulence, temperature and 4 aircraft that were just too different in performance, pretty much terminated this first effort, early. The Lancair was overheating as it slowed to keep formation, while the Bonanza struggled to keep up at 9,500 feet.

During a quick debrief and it was agreed that flying later might work... When the air was cooler and calmer. In the meantime, Weebs spent an hour going over safety and other issues that might result in the need for Plan B. (I took good notes and will write up a separate post about this.)

6:30pm: Bonanza N303B flew with other Bonanzas.

The day ended with a generous spread of absolutely delicious home cooked food.  A hangar party!

The company and conversation was wonderful and I was really enjoying getting to know these men and their wives.  Good people.  Interesting people.  Superb pilots with stories and lessons that I was grateful to walk away with.

Next stop: Pagosa Hot Springs.  Heck, yes!  Well deserved.  

We were exhausted and nothing beats finishing the day bopping from one pool to another, finding the perfect temperature for sitting, soaking and chatting about the day.

And I almost forgot... At 10:30pm I got my first introduction to Sonic!  From the oversized front seat of our rented Dodge Ram 1500, I slurped back a chocolate malt!  It was a warm night.



Tomorrows plan involved a super early morning and lots of flying...