On Fri, 5 May 2006 01:32:30 +0200, "Frode Berg"
wrote:

Hi!

I am a PPL, and co owner of an Arrow.

I have just over 250 hours total time, vfr only, and lot's of cross country.

However, during the past 3 years or so, I've constantly been overly alert
towards the possibility of hitting something in the sky.

It is an intimidating feeling, especially if you are flying VFR in a
heavily traffic'd airspace. I fly near Chicago, and my head is on a
swivel at all times.

As a reference, ~12 yrs of flying, and I have had one near mid-air.
We were descending from cruise altitude in a Seneca, and a Bonanza was
either in a slow climb or cruising in the opposite direction. The
rate of closure between the two planes was over 300kts.

There was snow on the ground and it was daytime. The brightness of
the snow made it very difficult to pick out the (white) Bonanza.

There were two pilots in the Seneca (and one more in the rear seat)
and none of us saw the Bonanza until the last few seconds. We were
slightly above, so we each grabbed the yoke and cranked back. We
missed by about 20 feet. The other pilot never altered course, so who
knows if he ever saw us.

The next flight for the Seneca was to the avionics shop to get a TCAD
installed. That doesn't guarantee traffic detection, but it does help
with 99% of it.

The real problem with mid-airs and see/avoid theory is that the human
eye is good at detecting changes in motion. When you are on a
collision course with an object, the position of the colliding object
does not change... The object just gets slightly bigger until the
last few seconds, when it gets big in a hurry.

-Nathan