Missing Man Formation, From The Inside

Yesterday I was proud and honored to be part of a Missing Man formation of four jets that flew over the graveside funeral services of a WWII pilot who recently passed away. I was Number 4.

We got the flyby done, but certainly not the way we'd planned it.

We arrived over the appointed location at exactly the right time, but there was no one there. Lead looked down and saw only neat rows of empty chairs. A radio query to our ground coordinator confirmed the worst: The person giving the eulogy had talked for thirty minutes over his alloted time, and the mourners were just about leave the church, which was several miles away. We asked the coordinator to hold everyone in the parking lot, and to not let them drive away. Using our Number 2 wingman's knowledge of the local area, we were able to find the church and fly directly over it in perfect formation, just as the last people were exiting the building. Number 3 turned on his smoke system and pulled up in a graceful arc away from the other three airplanes, the hole in the formation symbolizing the loss of one of our own.

We regrouped and came back for a final pass in diamond formation.

As we climbed out and headed for home, the solemn voice of the ground coordinator came over the radio. "Guys, that was just absolutely perfect. There are a lot of teary eyes down here."

There might have been a couple of them up in the airplanes, too. Missing Man formations always get to me, and now I know that they get to me even when I'm flying in them.