ALS flyover - Poteet, Texas, April 4, 2009

Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:37 pm

Our squadron is supposed to overfly the Poteet Strawberry Festival this weekend as part of their festivities. We did this last year and had a blast.

Ryan

Last edited by RyanShort1 on Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:27 pm

Nice! My boss just bought an L-4.

Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:54 pm

Since my training in the Citabria, these birds really look nice. I'm liking this! Maybe a first warbird for me????? :wink:

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:09 pm

That looks like great fun!

Have a good time!

Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:05 pm

Things went pretty well today for the flyover. As I mentioned before 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

Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:53 pm

. We sometimes fly 3 or 4 ship formations with J3 Cubs.
Personally, I think a wide formation looks better. Why bother with the tight formation? I like your comments about "not being fully qualified" and "not practiced much this year" (to get tighter) because that tells me that you guys take this seriously. And it is a lot of fun. Glad you have a nice little grass strip to come home to.

Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:49 am

Same Day Same Way...........close enough. Really no need to get tight in those L-Birds. Different weights , different speeds, different wing loadings, make them much tougher. Better safe than.............

Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:13 am

Obergrafeter wrote:Same Day Same Way...........close enough. Really no need to get tight in those L-Birds. Different weights , different speeds, different wing loadings, make them much tougher. Better safe than.............

And different drivers as well....

Lynn

Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:04 pm

Awesome pics man, look to be great to own a L-bird

Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:28 pm

We've got an L-3 in our hangar that we're overhauling the landing gear on, then we'll do the annual and get it in the air too. No shortage of volunteers with pilot licenses standing in line to fly it. Great pictures, I've always liked the L birds. Takes a "real" pilot to fly one!

Mon Apr 06, 2009 5:56 am

Do your pilots get to fly "inside" the airplane or do they all have to stand on the outside?

Mon Apr 06, 2009 9:24 pm

LOL, depends on how they treat the crew chief! Sgt. Micklin from the Baa Baa Blacksheep Squadron TV Series was my hero and mentor!!

"All right you college boys, you know I'm only letting you borrow my planes, don't bring back all shot up and broke, understand?"