Formation Training Clinic in Pittstown, New Jersey

[TeenDoc]

**** Cross-posted on AOPA and the Purple Board ****​

Hello POA Pilots and Friends,

The Cessnas 2 Oshkosh 2008 group will hold a formation training clinic for the Northeast pilots on June 21 at 9:00 AM. (EDT). In case weather causes the cancellation of this clinic, we will hold it on July 12.

The clinic will be held at Sky Manor Airport (N40) in Pittstown, New Jersey. Pittstown is located in central Jersey and is about halfway between Maine and North Carolina, exactly 38 nm west of Newark-Liberty International Airport (KEWR). I will be the lead pilot for the clinic and Craig Johnston, who has been very generous offering his talent and experience will help conduct the clinic. We will meet between 8:00 and 8:45 AM in the Sky Manor Airport Restaurant and then move to Craig's hangar.
The first part of the clinic is a "class" based on a slide presentation that lasts about an hour and 30 minutes. We will then have a ramp exercise followed by pre-flight briefs, practice flights and post-flight briefs. The number of flights will depend on the number of participants. We should be done at around 2:00 pm.

More information about the clinic is available on the Cessnas 2 Oshkosh website at The Pittstown Formation Clinic page. A summary of the slide presentation and other reference material is available on our website's training page.

For anyone that wants to come Friday night and stay over, a few bits of useful information:

The Sky Manor Restaurant is open Friday night until 9 pm for dinner. The buffet is always good.

Neither of the local hotels (Holiday Inn 908-735-5111 or Hampton Inn 908-713-4800) provide transportation. So I will make sure there is transportation to and from the hotels.

I really encourage those of you based within a few hours of Pittstown to make your best effort to attend.

For the mass arrival participants, we need to get this training out of the way and doing this clinic now will provide a safety cushion in case you cannot attend the Juneau Clinic and in the best of circumstances will provide a foundation on which to build further skills at Juneau.

For those of you who have not signed up for the Cessnas 2 Oshkosh 2008 mass arrival and regardless of whether you decide to participate in the mass arrival into Oshkosh or not, this training will sharpen your skills and will help you become a better pilot. Come join us!

Hope to see all of you in Pittstown!

Regards,

Gil (TeenDoc)
Steering Committee
Cessnas 2 Oshkosh 2008
mailto:gil@cessnas2oshkosh.com
https://www.cessnas2oshkosh.com

 

[gprellwitz]

Hey, how about doing one at Gaston's? I may try to do the Juneau one, but I know Leslie won't be able to go up with me, so I'm not even certain I'll fly.

 

[TeenDoc]

Hi Grant,

You know, I have thought about that. My concern is that most people want to hang out and relax at Gaston's and since the purpose of our clinics is to prepare for the mass arrival into Oshkosh, we put in 6 hours of work in a day.

In fact, I'm flying from Gaston's to Newton, Kansas on Saturday to help out in one of our clinics.

Also, I don't perceive too much interest on doing formation flying from the group. Some people see it as very dangerous. The kind of formation we do is really safe. We don't push the envelope. Is more flying very close than flying formation but we train hard and fly cautiously to increase the safety margin and manage the risk factor.

I can work with you individually if you want. Maybe Diana would like to join us. We did some formation flying with the Trunk Monkeys during her Grass Tour and it was sooooooo much fun.

 

[poadeleted20]

Speaking from the experience of having organized formation clinics before, if we did it at Gaston's, it would take up all the day time of the participants from arrival to departure. I agree with TeenDoc that this would not fit with too many folks' plans for what they want to do at Gaston's.

BTW, it usually takes us about 3-4 hours of ground training and 3-4 hops to get folks to the point where we feel they're safe for solo in a 2-ship, with a couple more after they're good a 2-ship to put them in a 4-ship. I'm not sure how the C2OSH folks can do it in five hours total, but more power to them if they can.

 

[gprellwitz]

Fair enough!

 

[TeenDoc]

I'm not sure how the C2OSH folks can do it in five hours total, but more power to them if they can.

...we put in 6 hours of work in a day.

Not six hours total.

Ron,

I know you believe that only the military or FFI can teach or do formation flying. I've read your posts here and on the Red Board. I respectfully disagree, but this is not the forum for that controversy. Luckily for us, our training director is a current military instructor, fixed and rotary, with combat experience as recent as the Afghanistan war. But we don't do that kind of formation. We do it for fun!

 

[poadeleted20]

Not six hours total.

Well, the original post said start at 9, done at 2, but perhaps I missed something.

And I don't limit quality formation training to FFI and the military. FAST does a great job, too, as do several offshoot groups like the Airmen and the Swift group. In any event, I've seen too many accident reports involving formation by those without enough training to do it safely, so I may be a bit spring-loaded to the oh-my-gawd position. If so, my intent is to let people know that it can be done safely if you get the right training, and that training is available from groups that have a lot of experience doing light plane formation training.

As a further aside, military formation training has its limits in application to light plane operations. The dramatic differences in wing and power loading are something that many folks with only jet fighter formation experience find eye-opening.