WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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I'm flying a few thousand feet over Lincolnshire

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with the Red Arrows,
the Royal Air Force aerobatic team.

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And maybe this is patriotism talking,

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but they are the best aerobatic
team anywhere in the world.

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Aircraft flying at
hundreds of miles an hour

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just metres apart from each other.

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Not just in level flight either.

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They do things like this.

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- Here at the Red Arrows,
we fly the BAE Systems Hawk T-Mk1

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powered by the
Rolls Royce Adour Engine.

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We've flown them here in the
Red Arrows since 1980

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which is obviously a reasonable time,

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but they are perfect for what they do.

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They are sprightly, they're fast,

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they're simple to operate, and
they're a pilot's aircraft.

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Today, we're going to have seven aircraft
of our total of nine in the display.

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We fly 6 to 11 feet apart in the air.
We're doing actually about 400 mph.

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The skill of formation flying is essentially
triangulating a position.

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So you have two references
that you're looking at.

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One at the front and one at
the back of another aircraft.

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And as long as you line up both
those references perfectly,

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you will be in the exact
formation position.

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We train for approximately seven months

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before we even display
anywhere near the public.

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We fly the same display for
almost four months of those seven,

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and it's a building-block approach
to get us to the stage where we are absolutely

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safe, professional and excellent enough
to display in front of the public.

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- So the question is: how is it possible

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to safely fly this close and
perform manoeuvres this precise?

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Part of it is training, trust, and talent,

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but part of it is a skill that
you probably already know,

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keeping your distance
from the car in front

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when you're driving on a highway.

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It's just that instead of
working in one dimension,

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these pilots are working in three.

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Or, if you count time, maybe even four.

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- My job as a team leader is to annunciate

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to all the team pilots where I'm going

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and when I'm going to do it.

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So we have a very metronomic
radio voice to let them know--

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"Coming, right, now."

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"Hold-ing-the-bank, now."

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Hold-ing-the-bank, now.

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Everything is done on that cadence

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and the guys know when I'm
going to make that input.

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The actual art of formation flying, in itself,
is reasonably straight forward.

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So the relative motion between the aircraft
is meant to be zero.

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And the only time that we have any
relative movement between the aircraft

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is when we're asking the pilots
to change shape.

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For the pilots who are up there, whilst they
might be upside down at 100 feet,

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to them the other aircraft don't
look like they're moving at all.

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So you can be too high or too low,
which we call too shallow or deep.

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You can be too far forwards or
too far backwards,

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which we call short or long.

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And of course, this being
a three-dimensional game,

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you can be too close,
or too tight as we call it,

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or too far away from the other aircraft,
which is what we call wide.

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But it's also about timing.

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So we're trying to, as the Red Arrows,
make it look like we're one wing

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that's moving beautifully
in graceful formation.

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And to do that, the guys who are
furthest away from me as the leader

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need to know when I'm going to turn.

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I expect them to have already
started putting their inputs

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if they're along way away from me,

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and if they don't, they're behind the time
and it's going to look like a broken chair.

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Every formation shape and
every formation position

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has a different route to get out of that formation
quickly and safely enough.

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They're what we call the escape strategies,
but every manoeuvre is different.

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So the pilots are not only
remembering which manoeuvre's next

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but also how to escape from that manoeuvre
when it's coming up.

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The pilots here on my team have
an inordinate amount of trust in each other.

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They have a prescribed piece of airspace
next to the aircraft that they're formating on.

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That's what we call the box.

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And the pilot who's flying next to them trusts

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that they're never going to be outside
of that box of formation.

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- Thank you to the Red Arrows,
to the RAF, and Rolls Royce.

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At some point I'll be over
in their Starrship channel,

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so have a look at the links on screen
or in the description!

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[laughter]

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Oh wow! [laughter]