Aviation Speak

If you haven't already heard the phrase "VFR not recommended" during a weather briefing, you are sure to hear it soon. The phrase is an advisory provided by flight service station briefers during preflight or in-flight weather briefings. It is intended to alert pilots planning to fly under visual flight rules to the possibility of encountering instrument meteorological conditions. Briefers issue this advisory any time current or forecast weather conditions are at or below VFR minimums. The briefer's recommendation is just that, and the pilot in command has the authority to make his or her own decision about whether or not to launch or continue a flight.

Formation Flight

The words formation flight may bring to mind the Blue Angels rocketing across the sky, their airplanes only inches apart. While that may be formation flying at its best, it is not the only time two or more aircraft may operate as one. As a Flight Training reader, you are already familiar with at least one way that civilian pilots may use formation flight-for air-to-air photography.

Regardless of how formation flight is used, it must conform to certain conditions. The pilots involved must agree, before the flight, to operate as a single aircraft with regard to navigation and position reporting. Separation between aircraft within the formation is the responsibility of the pilots.

Formation flights are divided into standard and nonstandard formations. In a standard formation, the aircraft are no more than one mile laterally and 100 feet vertically from the flight leader.

Nonstandard formations exist when the flight leader has received air traffic control approval for dimensions other than those of a standard formation, when the operation is conducted within an authorized altitude reservation or under the provisions of a letter of agreement, or when the operation is conducted in airspace designed for a special activity. For example, a nonstandard formation may be used when a large number of aircraft are traveling in formation.