Airshow season: Formation flying not for the faint-hearted

The airshow season is about to kick off, with formation aerobatic display teams a feature. Such flying is not for the faint-hearted.

The airshow season is about to kick off with the Warbirds Downunder Airshow at Temora in southwest NSW on October 12 and 13.

The RAAF formation aerobatic display team, the Roulettes, will be participating.

Formation flying, although bread and butter for fighter pilots, does have inherent risks, which is why the display is never flown over the spectator crowd. In a typical diamond four formation the two wingmen and the slot man just visually cue off the leader and if he misjudges his recovery altitude during pull-up then all four are lost.

In 1962, the RAAF Red Sales Vampire aerobatic team were lost when misjudging a recovery during practice of a low-level barrel roll. In 1967, during a formation landing of the RNZAF Vampire team, the slot man hit wake turbulence and crashed. The pilot who died was known to me. He was Murray Whineray, younger brother of famous All Black Sir Wilson Whineray. In 1982, the USAF Thunderbirds flying T-38 Talons conducting a four-plane diamond loop came to grief. And I watched the impressive USN Blue Angels F18 team at Reno Nevada Air Races several years ago. In their long history they have lost 27 pilots with a 10 per cent fatality rate.

The worst, however, was the 1988 Italian air force Macchi crash of three aircraft at Ramstein Air Base killing three pilots and 67 spectators.

Back in the 1970s when the defence budget was more accommodating, a Mirage Squadron would form an aerobatic display team each year.

I was in the 1975 No 77 Squadron team led by Squadron Leader Warrener. We would rehearse our display over the RAAF Williamtown base. The following year the team was reformed with different pilots. I was fortunate to be airborne in a FAC Winjeel aircraft holding just north of the Williamtown base while the team was rehearsing the manoeuvres.

I was watching and listening as the team in a diamond four formation trailing smoke came around in a low level steep turn with landing gear down. I heard the leader over the radio call “afterburner go” then “gear up go”. Suddenly the slot man rolled wings level and ejected — his engine had flamed out during afterburner light-up. I was first over the scene to find my colleague safely landed in his parachute about 50m from where his apparently intact Mirage had pancaked on to the fallow ground south of the runway.

Display team aerobatics need to be carefully rehearsed, especially with regard to minimum heights for each manoeuvre. The leader has the most difficult job as the rest of the formation are just flying with reference to the leader’s wingtip or, in the case of the slot man in a diamond four formation, the leader’s tailpipe.

Unfortunately, the solo man for the RAAF 75 Squadron Mirage display team went out to the low-flying area, north of RAAF Williamtown, to practise his bad weather display. The weather was bad with low cloud. He never returned.

Byron Bailey is a former RAAF fighter pilot and flew B777s as an airline captain.