Skydivers' Planes Mid-Air Collision Vids

[Aesop]

Not as such, but this may be the reg they media were referring to when I heard it:

(c)
FAR 91.307
Unless each occupant of the aircraft is wearing an approved parachute, no pilot of a civil aircraft carrying any person (other than a crewmember) may execute any intentional maneuver that exceeds—

(1) A bank of 60 degrees relative to the horizon; or

(2) A nose-up or nose-down attitude of 30 degrees relative to the horizon.

Due to the nature of the HERO cams worn and all the jumper climbing around going on, it was hard to tell if either a/c was pitched up sufficiently to meet the requirements, though obviously, a -90 dive and 90 R bank minus the starboard wing because you flew into the other plane probably falls outside the regs in any event.

[Netpackrat]

That's the regulation requiring parachutes for aerobatic flight in general.

[Aesop]

Yup.
I don't expect the newsreaders to get the little details right, but at least the report I saw wasn't making it up entirely.

[MarkD]

It takes a special kind of stupid to hit the only other thing in the air for miles around.

I bow to your ability to commit snark. We are unworthy.

Bear in mind that I've never jumped out of an airplane (perfectly good or otherwise), nor do I have any desire to do so. Still, my understanding of how these things work is that there are two people involved in getting people out the door: 1) the jump master, whose job is to make sure everyone is properly equipped, get everyone where they need to be preparatory to jumping, make sure everyone jumps when they should, etc and 2) the pilot, whose job is to get the plane where it needs to be for the jump and NOT HIT ANYTHING IN THE AIR. Maybe deal with mechanical failures and such too.

Am I over-simplifying?

[Aesop]

Not at all.

Let's remember that, since Marconi invented the thing, there's also a helpful onboard device called a "radio", frequently used by both military and civilian pilots (or even jumpmasters) for such mundane tasks as a/c to a/c comms for saying "Hey Ollie, this is Stan, I'm above you at your 8 o'clock at about 50 yards separation. Please refrain from, y'know, climbing left into my undercarriage, thanks."

But that would imply the level of planning and coordination I got familiar with as a passenger on military flights, and such wild levels of crazy-detailed planning are evidently considered "overkill" (no pun intended) in certain rural parachuting circles. (I also have a pretty strong suspicion that the pre-flight briefing between pilots consisted entirely of Stan telling Ollie "Let's go!", if indeed, it was even that detailed, but I'm open to counter-evidence.)

Which as demonstrated by the incident is how, with two 3-dimensional actors, you get the only two private a/c for miles around to fly into each other on a clear afternoon. I know there are IFR and VFR conditions, but alas, there appear to be no HUTAFRs.

I haven't seen or heard of any ATC tapes, if there are any. FAIK the pilot designated "target" in that exercise was screaming exactly that repeatedly at the end there, while the pilot designated as "missile" may have been tuned to some rad tunes on his iPod or something.

When an unarmed civilian pilot not even attempting such achieves more aircraft kills in an afternoon than some military pilots have done loaded for bear in entire wars trying to get them, I don't think it's snark to accord the feat its proper due, nor speculate that someone is or will be shortly, an ex-pilot. Once again, I defer to the licensed tamers of machine and sky, but I suspect that FAA or NTSB inspectors will not react favorably to the "I left my brains in the hanger" defense, despite the agreeably sweet lack of a body count in this case.

[tcourtplayer]

To be clear (in case anyone is wondering) the only thing that is required by the FAA for two or more planes to fly in a formation is for the Pilots in Command to agree to/brief it ahead of time. That is it. No training requirement, no set standards for distances, no standard terminology/voice calls, no standard procedures for joining up...nothing. As a Naval Aviator, I can tell you first hand how stupid most military pilots believe this is. As this shows it takes a great deal of skill, concentration, coordination and patience to fly formation at all, much less correctly/effectively.

[Termite]

To be clear (in case anyone is wondering) the only thing that is required by the FAA for two or more planes to fly in a formation is for the Pilots in Command to agree to/brief it ahead of time. That is it. No training requirement, no set standards for distances, no standard terminology/voice calls, no standard procedures for joining up...nothing.

Sec. 91.111 — Operating near other aircraft.
(a) No person may operate an aircraft so close to another aircraft as to create a collision hazard.

(b) No person may operate an aircraft in formation flight except by arrangement with the pilot in command of each aircraft in the formation.

(c) No person may operate an aircraft, carrying passengers for hire, in formation flight.

As a Naval Aviator, I can tell you first hand how stupid most military pilots believe this is. As this shows it takes a great deal of skill, concentration, coordination and patience to fly formation at all, much less correctly/effectively.

As a former Army helicopter pilot with dozens of formation flights, I agree 1000%.