Spanish Air Force aerobatic demonstration team

http://vimeo.com/71747995

The two guys in trail are kinda hemmed in. We were taught formation flying in Army helicopter flight school, but I didn't care for it. If anything touched it would be an advancing and a retreating blade and everybody dies. I flew Cobra in Vietnam and missed the tight formations of the slick drivers. I rode out with them to get the Blues in a tight LZ once, on my day off. They overlapped blades going in. I never rode with them again. Scared the pee out of me.

Over the years I've watched a number of formation takeoffs and landings, primarily at OSH now but when I was stationed at EDF in the early 70s, the fighter jocks routinely took off in formation, although rarely landed in formation. The risk is awfully high, especially on landing. That was emphasized a few years ago when a couple of warbirds touched while landing on 36 at OSH, and one of them attempted to power out of it and torque-rolled out of control and died. I was a long way from it but saw it happen--scary. Note: the NTSB report says that they weren't trying to land in formation, but that sure was what it looked like to me.

Cary

Wow. That is something else. I would definitely be a little apprehensive landing in formation.

Sounds like he's got a distressed cow in the back seat.