TARGET 120229

A SLOW FLIGHT IN A VERY FAST PLANE
Performing the flyover for the F117A's Silver Ceremony

The real "right stuff"

Note to viewers: The slow flyover was for the 25th anniversary of the F117A's use by the U.S. military. That ceremony, however, is not the target in this week's tasking. The tasking for this Target of the Week is the people, the planes, and the process of the flyover, itself.

Planes fly because the wind passing over the wings produces lift. The bigger the wing and the faster the wind, the more lift there is. So, the wings of all planes are designed to be of a size that will produce enough lift to hold the heavy body of the plane up when it is going through the air at its normal flying speed.

So, the three factors that determine whether a plane can fly or not are: the weight of the plane (how much weight has to be lifted), the speed of the plane (that determines how fast the wind will pass over the wing), and the size of the wing (to take advantage of the wind's lift). Slower or heavier planes have to have bigger wings. Faster or lighter planes have to have smaller wings. Simple, huh? But what if you have a small plane that is very heavy and only has very small wings? Well, it has to go a LOT faster to produce more wind over the wings to lift it.

Jet fighter planes are very heavy, especially when loaded with armament, but they go extremely fast, so their wings can be much smaller. That's fine to hold the plane up as they go as they blast through the sky at their amazing speeds. But there's a problem when they fly slowly. The wings don't produce enough lift to hold them up. Going fast, their pilots are flying a plane. Going slow, their pilots are basically trying to keep a big, heavy piece of machinery from falling out of the sky. They may as well be trying to fly the kitchen stove or refridgerator.

So, what happens when they are required to fly slowly, for a long time, all the while staying in a tight formation with other planes that are also hard to control at that speed? Well, the answer is that they had better be top-rated pilots, capable of making their plane do the virtually impossible. Fortunately, the flight school at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico trains their pilots to be that good.

So, on the 30th of October, 2006, 25 such top-rated pilots in 25 such very heavy planes were tasked to do a slow flyover of the ceremony for the F117A's Silver Anniversary (35 years) of service.

Because of the difficulty of the mission, flight crews had been working day and night to make sure the planes were in top flying condition.

Taking time, of course, to be recorded for history

Waiting to be flown

As a result of their work, on the morning of Oct. 30, there were 25 planes, arranged in sets of five, waiting on the flight line at Holloman AFB. Later, the pilots arrived, did their pre-flight checkouts, and at the scheduled time, began to roll out their planes for takeoff.

While back on the tarmac, four more groups of five planes waited their turn.

The planes had to take off one at a time, so it took quite a while before they were all in the air. While the last ones took off, the others had to wait around, circuling until all 25 planes are airborne. Finally away, the planes began their formation, even though it would still be an hour or so until the actual flyover.

Finally all away.

Once the actual formation started, each group of five planes achieved the standard "V"
or "spear" shaped formation, the same formation that migrating birds fly because
of its efficiency (and beauty) in flight.

Then, the leader of each group had to make sure that his group was a set distance from
the group ahead, so the whole flight would be evenly spaced.

Then, finally, came the moment of the actual flyover. It was not only a slow process because of the airspeed, but also because the formation had to begin several dozens of miles away in order to give the pilots time to finalize the formation into its exacting speed and pattern. Seen in the long-range picture below, taken with a high-powered telescopic lens, the formation began over the far distant mountains.

Getting the formation and speed perfected.

Then, in a flight that would normally last a few seconds. but now takes more than a minute, the formation flew smoothly over the base where the ceremony was taking place.

The actual ceremonial flyover

And just like that, it was over. The pilots kept the speed and formation until they were out of sight of the ceremony, then broke out of the tight formation, sped up, and again flew around until the ceremony was over. At that time, they headed back to base. (They don't mind this extra flying around, by the way, since it helps meet their required number of flight hours)

Holding the formation

Breaking formation and speeding up

Finally back home

But their day was not over. There were still many hours of post flight inspections, forms to fill out, and reports to be made - for both the pilots and the flight crews.

FEEDBACK MAP

If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, please take a look at the following web sites for more:

All Things Aero website
Wikipedia
Federation of American Scientists (pictures, diagrams, data)
Air Force Technology website

The photographs shown here were graciously provided by the Office of Public Affairs, Holloman AFB.