Larry Dighera wrote:
Please explain how the 'big sky theory' will PROTECT you from a MAC.


Easy enough. As an old environmental biology professor once said to me:
"Dilution is the solution to pollution". What are the chances of another
aircraft occupying the exact same airspace at the exact same time as mine?

The odds go way up near natural collecting points such as airports and airways
but go way down out in the middle of nowhere. Certain altitudes are better than
others as well. I find relatively little traffic at 8,000 feet simply because
it's too low for jets to hang around at and higher than most normally aspirated
aircraft bother to climb (at least in this part of the world).

I apply the same theory when I consider whether to worry about getting on a
airliner that may be hijacked. What are the odds that an airliner that *I* am
getting on will be hijacked today? Out of all the airliners flying all day long
from all the places on earth? My airliner?

Only a stupid person totally discounts the possibility. Only a phobic person
focuses on it all the time. I fly VFR with my eyes out as much as possible and
use flight following if I can get it. I do not worry particularly that I might
hit someone.

It's the same thinking I apply in keeping a gun in the car and a fire
extinguisher in my kitchen and garage.

I've only had one near miss and that was on a prearranged formation photo
flight. The other pilot turned into me at the end of the photo portion flight
of the flight, expecting the superior performance of his C-421 to pull him
around my C-210. It did, but only after my standard rate turn to the left
became a maximum effort left turn on my part. My windshield was completely
filled with C-421. Scared the everliving **** out of me....

That is the only near miss since I started flying in 1978.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE