All Participants
All participants must have:
1) Minimum 10 hours formation time
2) Attended at least one formal formation clinic or equivalent
3) A valid medical
4) A valid airman's certificate with appropriate ratings
5) Valid insurance
6) Required aircraft paperwork
7) Completed the registration and waiver
8) Paid $15

Since this is a public event, assume that you will have to pass a ramp check.

Formation Flight Spacing and Symmetry
The teams will be broken into two classes based on their level of experience and the number of carded pilots in the flight: Full House and Two Pair.

Team Formulation
Please remember that you are the pilot in command of your airplane. The information that you provide will be used to place you and your team in the following classifications:

• Full House - All team members will have a FAST or FFI wingman card as a minimum. The flight leader will have a Lead card. Individual members will have a minimum of 35 formation hours and current (past 90 days) formation experience.
• Two Pair - Flight lead and element leads will have a FAST or FFI wingman card. The flight leader will have a Lead card. Wingman are not required to have cards but must have attended a formation clinic or received some formalized formation training. All pilots must have current formation experience. Novice pilots without lead or wing cards will only be allowed to fly in the Two Pair class. Your participation will be left up to the flight leader.
  

The goal of each class is to demonstrate precision, correct symmetry and proper spacing based on your class. Advanced experience teams will be judged according to the manual i.e., wingtip and nose to tail clearance. lower experience teams will maintain at least one ship separation. Your experience level will be assessed by the judges prior to your flight and their rule is the law.


Routines
Judging will start with the brief so make sure that your judges know where your brief is and the time it is occurring.

All teams must submit a routine that describes the maneuvers that the team will be performing during the competition. You routine will be a copy of your briefing card. When you fill out your briefing cards, fill out an extra one for the judges. Judges will use that as the baseline for scoring. You can get a briefing card here.

Configuration changes should be crisp and precise since you will be under constant scrutiny by the judges and the general public. Novice teams will not perform configuration changes during passes.  There are some routine excerpts on the judging page.

All teams must arrange for an announcer! It's crucial that the audience knows what your team is doing. The audience likes to know about the pilots and their aircraft. It adds a personal touch to your routines. If you can't get an announcer, please contact us at the provided email address so we can help you get one.

Aerobatic Maneuvers are Prohibited!
There is to be NO AEROBATIC FLIGHT during the Formation Challenge. We are not performing in waivered airspace! Any aerobatic flight maneuvers will disqualify a team from the competition instantly. Any team or pilot that engages in unsafe flight maneuvers will be disqualified from the competition.

Radio Communications
All participating aircraft must be able to communicate with the tower at all times during the contest. It is highly recommended that one aircraft possess the ability to monitor both a descrete inter-flight frequency and the tower. This will keep the chatter on the tower frequency to a minimum.

Information Resources

• You can get a copy of the T34 Formation Flight manual here. The T34 site has lots of other resources such as videos which come highly recommended.
• The Bonanza folks have some excellent resources here. The Bonanzas to Oshkosh group has advice and links to formation training that every formation pilot should examine.
• The Van's RVers also have an active formation group here. The Vans site is a wealth of infomation that should be on all formation pilots list of must reads.
  
• The FAST web site. Formation And Safety Team information, forms, and pictures.
• The FFI standards can be found here.
  

If you have any questions send email to: starwizz@pacbell.net