Snowbirds: The Boss Part 3: Inside the Snowbirds - Maciej "Match" Hatta

Something I have a question about.

You mentioned, like, a really specific set of wording if somebody is out of position in formation and you have to use, like, efficient specific cuing that's different from normal.

Like, what's an example of that? Like, let's say you're, I don't know, you're low and a little too spaced out.

Like, what would the wording be?

Yeah.

So low would be deep.

Spaced out would be, depending on if you're laterally spaced out, which would be wide, or longitudinally spaced out, which would be stretched.

Uh, so we really break it down into the three axes.

But to take it a step back, basically everyone in the formation has an error box that they could stay within.

And even within your error box, you would still be talking about errors that you had from the ideal.

'Cause we always wanna see, going from the front, including myself, you know, what's the impact of my error on people behind me, people beside me, and, you know, was their error in contribution to mine or was it their own error? And we kind of have to ripple that down the formation so that by the time we get to the end, people know or have an idea that, hey, the back end stretch, but they stretch because I ran a high power setting the whole time and they were never going to stay in.

Um, so these kinds of things give the feedback both ways so that now you know, okay, I was too active on the controls up front and now that affects everybody, so I need to smooth out my inputs, uh, when I'm up front as like an inner or, um, or one of the lower single digits.

But to go back to that air box, so everybody has about a two foot by two foot by two foot air box.

I think Maurice was describing this, uh, the other day as well.

And, um, within that, you know, you're still talking about your errors, but, uh, you don't really need to say anything on the radio.

But once you exceed those, uh, dimensions, now you have to start talking on the radio about it because you're basically out of your position enough that you can start affecting somebody.

And this really blew people's minds when, back when we did do media rides my first and second year as a, as a six.

So I'd be flying outer right wing, and typically the natural position would be behind two.

So two is echelon right on the boss, and then I would be behind and underneath two, um, in the standard big diamond position, and obviously below them as well, below their jet wash.

And beside me to my left would be number four, who would be in line astern on the boss, on number one.

Um, and then what would always blow people's minds when they came for a ride is I'm rarely looking at four beside me.

I'm never looking at two.

I'm only looking at, generally only looking at the boss and certain references on the boss's smoke tanks to find my position.

And it kind of makes sense when you think about, hey, if you want to be the most stable in a formation, you've got to look at the most stable player.

If you start looking at the person right beside you who, who's also reacting to movements and maybe having a bad day themselves, then you are just going to compound that error, and you're going to be much more out of position typically.