Vingen Honor Flight

To honor our dear friend Vingen, who recently passed away, we will conduct a ceremonial flight starting at Kutaisi, flying a longer route through Caucasus. We will organize participants into four-ships and two-ships. Each flight flies fingertip-right formation in a manner that the members of that group is comfortable with. The flights will be organized into a very loose big formation and fly together. If you’re able to, it’s appreciated if you choose fly one of Vingen’s favorite fixed wing aircraft (F/A-18, MiG-21 or F-14). However, participants are free to fly any aircraft they are comfortable with (as long as there is at least two)! We expect a mix of aircraft, and encourage everyone to participate, as long as you are at least able to follow your lead in a somewhat reasonable formation.

As an opening ceremony, after jumping into our aircraft at Kutaisi, canopys open, we’ll observe a moment of silence watching a 4-ship of community members that were particularly close to Vingen perform a missing man formation.

You can also sign up as ATC. It would be very valuable.

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
– Leonardo DaVinci

Execution

* Briefing starts at 19:30 Swedish Time.
* Briefing will contain some words about our dear absent friend, as well as going through the flight plan.
* Knugen, who will act ATC, will join at 20:00, and open up for a few more questions.
* Mission starts at 20:10 (0630 in game time), everybody should already be on the server.
* Everybody will spawn, make sure everything looks good, and make sure to be ready asap (0637 at the latest, if you’re not spawned in at 0637, you need to wait until 0641, in order to not disturb video recording). 3 minutes of silence from 0637 to 0640 (radio and TS).
* At 0641, the missing man formation will have passed, and everybody starts the engines, no clearance needed (MissingMan1 hits tanker Arco 101X overhead Kutaisi 18000′, then orbits at 6000′)
* Everybody will need to get ready for taxi asap. There are approximate takeoff times below.
* Be ready to line up and take off as soon as the flight in front of you has departed.
* After takeoff, switch to ch 3, turn left and join MissingMan1 in a very loose V formation (your own flight stays in fingertip-right).
* When all flights have joined up, we’ll fly a ~300 nm route taking us from Kutaisi – Gori – Sukhumi – Poti – Kutaisi.
* Approaching Kutaisi at 3000′, switching to ch 7, the big formation will break up and each flight should hold in left hand orbit over Kutaisi at its pre-briefed altitude.
** Maktoum9 (first) with Falcon1 (trailing) will go directly to Kutaisi at 1500′ for the OHB instead of joining the stack.
** All other flights (starting from the flanks) will offset 30 degrees right/left (depending on flank) and climb to stack altitude.
* Tower will instruct flights to commence from holding, upon which they descend and turn towards rwy 07, flying echelon left and perform right-hand OHB landings at Kutaisi.
** If you need to go around, request instructions from tower (you may need to divert to Senaki).
* Flights should park on the apron which they started on.
* We will have a short debrief and talk about the warm memories we had with Vingen.

Details

* Lights: Turn off all lights except strobe and landing lights, for the duration of the flight.
* Channels in use are 7 (Tower), led by Knugen, and 3 (Package) led by Justin Case (MissingMan11).
* Leave your RWR off. Radars might be needed for efficient rejoins.
* If you have been away for some time and sign up on this event. Make sure to run a thorough test ride before, so that you know all the technical stuff works, including SRS.
* Don’t change skins or loadouts. Hornets and Vipers carry single centerline fueltanks and the wing pylons are removed.
* The formation leader (MissingMan11) will set A/A TCN 52Y, so if you tune in A/A TCN 115Y you can see distance to him.
* The stack overhead Kutaisi is a left-hand circle, approx 5 nm diameter. Recommended speed is 250-300 kts.

Time plan

0630 Mission Start (Spawn in, make sure everything is okay)
0637 Moment of silence
0638 MissingMan1 flight passes WP1 (400 kts)
0640 Missing Man Flyover by MissingMan1 (Hornet 4-ship)
0641 Engine startup
0656 First takeoff
0714 Last takeoff (indicative, flights should try to depart asap after the flight in front of them has departed)
0719 Last form-up
0805 Hold in stack over Kutaisi
0810 First landings
0828 Last landings

Lineup

Note: T/O times are indicative. Flights should try to depart asap after the flight in front of them has departed.

MissingMan1 (Hornet) Stack 3000′
Justin
Punch
Apollo
Jinx

Pepsi2 (Hornet) T/O 0656, Stack 6000′
Bankler
Magistern
Pling
Johnny

Arrak3 (Hornet) T/O 0658, Stack 7000′
Jackflash
Bubin
Mauen
Wallgren

Nightowl4 (Hornet) T/O 0700, Stack 8000′
Pocket
Gibby
Jasnisse
Chris

Couch2 T/O 0702, Stack 9000′
Jax (16 18)
Multitool
Bejo
Creedarn

Nocturne5 (Tomcat) T/O 0704, Stack 10000′
Bambi
Översten
Shiggan (18 14 16)
Wex (14 18)

Daytrade6 (Tomcat) T/O 0706, Stack 11000′
Jedi
Agaton
Troll
Moof (14 21)

Werther7 (Viggen) T/O 0708, Stack 4000′
Ironsavior
Brink
Nasty
Kiterider

Frolic8 (Viggen) T/O 0710, Stack 5000′
DeadEnd
Northghost

Maktoum9 (Fishbed) T/O 0712, Stack (N/A Direct 1)
Qvintus
Urist
Iko
Phlogios

Falcon1 (Viper) T/O 0714, Stack (N/A Direct 2)
Mags
Tobias

ATC
Knugen