Eagle Formation: almost a little American, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the fact that Robins are notoriously hard to find across the pond… Anyway, the Eagle Formation is best flown with six aircraft, as you can see on the schematic here. Five planes are also possible. The one behind the number one is left out in that case. The eagle’s ‘nose’ and ‘wings’ remain intact.
The Eagle Formation is a very wide formation as on both sides of the leader, two planes are flying in Line Abreast position. Thus, next to each other with about one meter between either wingtip. Due to its wide nature, it’s difficult to fly turns. This is due to the difference in speed between the outmost plane and inmost plane which is necessary to complete the turn in the formation. For more information about this, check out the Line Abreast Formation.
