  In this paper we introduce the usage of guidance vector fields for the
coordination and formation flight of fixed-wing aircraft. In particular, we
describe in detail the technological implementation of the formation flight
control for a fully distributed execution of the algorithm by employing the
open-source project Paparazzi. In this context, distributed means that each
aircraft executes the algorithm on board, each aircraft only needs information
about its neighbors, and the implementation is straightforwardly scalable to an
arbitrary number of vehicles, i.e., the needed resources such as memory or
computational power not necessarily scale with the number of total aircraft.
The coordination is based on commanding the aircraft to track circumferences
with different radii but sharing the same center. Consequently, the vehicles
will travel different distances but with the same speeds in order to control
their relative angles in the circumference, i.e., their orbital velocities. We
show the effectiveness of the proposed design with actual formation flights
during the drone parade in IMAV2017.
