Cockpit view of F16 Formation flying

Some may like this. I do.

As a tribute to our new king ten F16 jet-fighters of the Dutch Royal Air-force flew in formation over Amsterdam.

Cockpit view

Ground view

Great video. It gives you an idea of how hard formation flying can be for everyone but the flight lead, the way they bounce around.

reply to post by EartOccupant


I like it, too. Thanks for sharing.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Zaphod, I've been meaning recently to tell you how much I have enjoyed all your contributions here all these years. As an earthbound aviation enthusiast (by choice and acknowledgement--even if I were born a bird I still would never be able to get the hang of flying ), I have appreciated you being an ATS member.

reply to post by desert


Thanks, I appreciate that.

Speaking of birds, I watched a raven in some insane winds the other day pull of some amazing maneuvers. He was hovering, folded his wings, dove straight down towards the ground spinning, flipped his wings back out, and went into a hover again back up where he started.

Hmm...can someone post the pics here?

Nice video!! I love how you can see them all bobbing around, you don't get a sense of it when you're watching from the ground

reply to post by Florasaurus


"Tail End Charlie" has the hardest job in the formation. The lead obviously sets the formation and course, etc. The farther out in the line you go, the more control input is required to keep formation. So number 2 (using an echelon formation), moves their controls less than an inch for each input, number three about half an inch, all the way out to the end, who depending on the number of planes is almost throwing the stick back and forth to stay in formation (obviously a slight exaggeration but you get the point).

I thought some would like it.

A little additional info:

You can see parts of an Orange/Black painted F16 Flying along.
This is a demonstration plane of the Airforce



Some fancy orange flying



Onboard Dutch F16 Demo Flight Barcelona

reply to post by EartOccupant


That's a pretty airplane. I always love seeing the display teams, and special paintjobs of other countries. As much as I love watching the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds fly, I've always thought they were conservative compared to other teams that fly like 10-12 aircraft, and the paint jobs they use.

I always liked this one: