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#101
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Scared of mid-airs
Y'All,
Getting there late again. Every time I find someone has read my site talk about traffic avoidance by selected altitudes and checkpoint avoidance I find that I have increased my risk of a mid-air. I have found a way to prove the validity of flying at selected altitudes. Fly at 2750 feet AGL and watch the number of aircraft that pass above and below you. Problem is that pretty soon everyone will be doing it and coming at you from any direction. Reasons not to worry are statistically great but one factor not mentioned in this thread is that of the people involved in mid-air accidents 50% are likely to become survivors. Aside from the airport vicinity hazards, you must listen and use the radio to wake up those who are coming at your rear with a greater airspeed. Gene Whitt |
#102
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Scared of mid-airs
On Wed, 10 May 2006 22:20:58 -0000, Jim Logajan
wrote: "Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote: I've been flying all over the world and much of it, about 13000 hours, crop dusting. I could see running into tall scarecrows, birds, or the occasional semi- trailer Magnum Oil truck while you try to kill Cary Grant, but I can't see you encountering many other planes at the low altitudes you probably spent all that time flying. :-) You do generally have to pull up to make the turns and that puts you into Piper Cub territory. Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com By the way, are you the pilot flying this plane: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3...1600/NBN12.jpg ;-) |
#103
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Scared of mid-airs
"Frode Berg" wrote in message news OK. I will not speak my mind on this forum if this is what happens. Thanks to all the insightful posts by all you other people! I just needed to put some statistics into perspective. After all, I witnessed a mid air right before starting my PPL. However, tha last week I've flown a few times, and haven't thought much about it anymore. I guess mr Ol Shy here is flying around his farm in the middle of nowhere at 300 feet in his ultralight. I only have 250 hours total, and have had 3 close encounters. Not really "near misses" apart from one of them, but they were still to me uncomfortably close, so you claiming 23.000 hours with none....? Hmmm...makes you wonder... Frode Nope. Old Shy, like I did, started flying about fifty years ago when you learned to fly by looking out the windows. As a result looking out the windows becomes a habit when flying. As a result you can see the other traffic and "near misses" just don't happen very darned often. I have also been flying about fifty some odd years all over the country includeing some years flying charters in the NYC area ( yes, it was busy there forty years ago also ) . In that time I have had two near misses. Both were high performance turboprops climbing up beneath me on my same course where I had a hard time seeing them and they were so busy fiddleing with radios and instruments that neither of them was paying any attention to where they were going until they looked up and saw my belly filling their windshield. The other common spot for midairs is short final. You get a high wing on a straight in approach and a low wing in a tight steep pattern and the low wing guy can land on top of the high winger. Be especially vigilant around airports. That is where airplanes often are! :-) Avoid straight in approachs and always roll level for a short spell on base and look to the incoming courseline. Be sure to look high and low because you never know what kind of a glideslope they might be using. It has worked well for me. Highflyer Highflight Aviation Services Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY ) |
#104
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Scared of mid-airs
The closest near miss I've ever had was on final approach
into Wichita [ICT] while giving dual to a student pilot. We were about number 5 or 6 in the pattern for 19R flying a Beech Sundowner N18873. These are low-wing with fair dihedral [for those not familiar]. We were told to extend downwind by the tower to allow several departures and an arrival into the pattern. The tower called our base about 4 miles north of the airport. One about a mile final I told my student that he needed to compensate for the drift as the wind was changing. I suggested a slip to get aligned and he dropped the right wing. As is my practice and habit, I looked in that direction and saw a Cessna 150 about 20 feet off our wing and just slightly below our altitude. I took the plane and began a miss and advised the tower. I asked about the traffic and they told me about the plane I was following 1/4-1/2 mile ahead I told him about the C150. Turned out he was to follow us and about 3 miles or so on downwind his instructor had him turn base. He never saw us and the tower didn't see the convergence. He turned onto a collision course and remained under our wing all the way on base and turning final. I was under radar control and was probably a little lax, certainly the tower was lax and the pilots in the C150 had me at 12 O'clock for quite a while and never saw us. They should have reported to the tower that they didn't have us and that they were turning base [w/o clearance]. The pilot had blue eyes and never looked left. The rivets on a C150 are real big. -- James H. Macklin ATP,CFI,A&P -- The people think the Constitution protects their rights; But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome. some support http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm See http://www.fija.org/ more about your rights and duties. "Highflyer" wrote in message ... | | "Frode Berg" wrote in message | news | OK. | | I will not speak my mind on this forum if this is what happens. | | Thanks to all the insightful posts by all you other people! | | I just needed to put some statistics into perspective. | After all, I witnessed a mid air right before starting my PPL. | | However, tha last week I've flown a few times, and haven't thought much | about it anymore. | | I guess mr Ol Shy here is flying around his farm in the middle of nowhere | at 300 feet in his ultralight. | | I only have 250 hours total, and have had 3 close encounters. Not really | "near misses" apart from one of them, but they were still to me | uncomfortably close, so you claiming 23.000 hours with none....? | Hmmm...makes you wonder... | | Frode | | | Nope. Old Shy, like I did, started flying about fifty years ago when you | learned to fly by looking out the windows. As a result looking out the | windows becomes a habit when flying. As a result you can see the other | traffic and "near misses" just don't happen very darned often. I have also | been flying about fifty some odd years all over the country includeing some | years flying charters in the NYC area ( yes, it was busy there forty years | ago also ) . In that time I have had two near misses. Both were high | performance turboprops climbing up beneath me on my same course where I had | a hard time seeing them and they were so busy fiddleing with radios and | instruments that neither of them was paying any attention to where they were | going until they looked up and saw my belly filling their windshield. | | The other common spot for midairs is short final. You get a high wing on a | straight in approach and a low wing in a tight steep pattern and the low | wing guy can land on top of the high winger. Be especially vigilant around | airports. That is where airplanes often are! :-) Avoid straight in | approachs and always roll level for a short spell on base and look to the | incoming courseline. Be sure to look high and low because you never know | what kind of a glideslope they might be using. | | It has worked well for me. | | Highflyer | Highflight Aviation Services | Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY ) | | | |
#105
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Scared of mid-airs
My advice is this, do your best to see and be seen. Turn your lights
on even on good vis days. Give concise and regular position reports when you are in non controlled airspace. If you are going to have a mid air then its one of those unlikely times where you were looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've only been flying about 60 hours and the one near miss I had was when there were only two aircraft (NORDO aircraft notwithstanding) airborne in 30 square miles. We heard the other guy broadcast his intentions and knew he was nearby but quick thinking by my instructor averted disaster. We missed each other by a fair margin but ATC still radioed us for a position report as they got a radar alert. |
#106
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Scared of mid-airs
The closest call I've had was returning solo from RDG (Reading, PA) to SMQ
(Somerset, NJ) in a borrowed school Cherokee 140. My flight took me right through our local practice area at letdown, so I kept my eyes particularly open. I entered a very extended 45 for 30, and continued to descend, all the time watching for traffic. When I was a couple of miles out, I announced that I was "over route 22 on the 45 for 30, Somerset", and by this time, had descended to 1,200 feet. For some reason, I decided to go ahead and descend to 1,100 feet (pattern altitude) at that point, which was what my first instructor (a 79-year-old veteran) had always insisted on, but was lower than what every other instructor I had after Lou wanted. When I got to the "horse farm", our standard reporting point on the 45 for SMQ, I was about to make a second call when one of the other school Cherokees announced that he was "over the horse farm at 1,200 feet". While grabbing the mike, I looked up very carefully and could still see no one. I immediately announced that I was "directly over the horse farm at 1,100 feet, where are you?" There was a pause, and he then announced that he was "climbing". I had dropped down to 1,000 feet instinctively, but didn't have a lot of room to maneuver, so I made my turn to downwind a bit lower than usual. Someone at the FBO said "good job, guys". As I turned, I could finally see him continuing on the 45 over the field. I landed and then waited for him to park it, too. We figured out that we had probably been within 100 feet of each other, one directly above the other, all the way from the practice area. He'd heard my position report over 22, but because he couldn't see me, decided that it must have been somewhere else (he was a student and we share the CTAF with five or six airports in the area). He couldn't see me because of his wing, and I couldn't see him because of the roof overhead. Even leaning out over the glare shield and jamming my head against the side window, in the seconds before my "where are you?" announcement, I could not see him. Scary. Ever since then I make some S turns before starting my decent. While doing this I look both up and down for aircraft overhead and underneath. -- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways) "Jim Macklin" wrote in message news:N9S9g.20788$ZW3.17105@dukeread04... The closest near miss I've ever had was on final approach into Wichita [ICT] while giving dual to a student pilot. We were about number 5 or 6 in the pattern for 19R flying a Beech Sundowner N18873. These are low-wing with fair dihedral [for those not familiar]. We were told to extend downwind by the tower to allow several departures and an arrival into the pattern. The tower called our base about 4 miles north of the airport. One about a mile final I told my student that he needed to compensate for the drift as the wind was changing. I suggested a slip to get aligned and he dropped the right wing. As is my practice and habit, I looked in that direction and saw a Cessna 150 about 20 feet off our wing and just slightly below our altitude. I took the plane and began a miss and advised the tower. I asked about the traffic and they told me about the plane I was following 1/4-1/2 mile ahead I told him about the C150. Turned out he was to follow us and about 3 miles or so on downwind his instructor had him turn base. He never saw us and the tower didn't see the convergence. He turned onto a collision course and remained under our wing all the way on base and turning final. I was under radar control and was probably a little lax, certainly the tower was lax and the pilots in the C150 had me at 12 O'clock for quite a while and never saw us. They should have reported to the tower that they didn't have us and that they were turning base [w/o clearance]. The pilot had blue eyes and never looked left. The rivets on a C150 are real big. -- James H. Macklin ATP,CFI,A&P -- The people think the Constitution protects their rights; But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome. some support http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm See http://www.fija.org/ more about your rights and duties. "Highflyer" wrote in message ... | | "Frode Berg" wrote in message | news | OK. | | I will not speak my mind on this forum if this is what happens. | | Thanks to all the insightful posts by all you other people! | | I just needed to put some statistics into perspective. | After all, I witnessed a mid air right before starting my PPL. | | However, tha last week I've flown a few times, and haven't thought much | about it anymore. | | I guess mr Ol Shy here is flying around his farm in the middle of nowhere | at 300 feet in his ultralight. | | I only have 250 hours total, and have had 3 close encounters. Not really | "near misses" apart from one of them, but they were still to me | uncomfortably close, so you claiming 23.000 hours with none....? | Hmmm...makes you wonder... | | Frode | | | Nope. Old Shy, like I did, started flying about fifty years ago when you | learned to fly by looking out the windows. As a result looking out the | windows becomes a habit when flying. As a result you can see the other | traffic and "near misses" just don't happen very darned often. I have also | been flying about fifty some odd years all over the country includeing some | years flying charters in the NYC area ( yes, it was busy there forty years | ago also ) . In that time I have had two near misses. Both were high | performance turboprops climbing up beneath me on my same course where I had | a hard time seeing them and they were so busy fiddleing with radios and | instruments that neither of them was paying any attention to where they were | going until they looked up and saw my belly filling their windshield. | | The other common spot for midairs is short final. You get a high wing on a | straight in approach and a low wing in a tight steep pattern and the low | wing guy can land on top of the high winger. Be especially vigilant around | airports. That is where airplanes often are! :-) Avoid straight in | approachs and always roll level for a short spell on base and look to the | incoming courseline. Be sure to look high and low because you never know | what kind of a glideslope they might be using. | | It has worked well for me. | | Highflyer | Highflight Aviation Services | Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY ) | | | |
#107
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Scared of mid-airs
"Roger" wrote in message ... On Wed, 10 May 2006 15:20:32 -0700, Mark Hansen wrote: I've had thee close encounters since 1963. The last was nearly 10 years ago when landing. It was nearly dark and an ultralight pulled right in front of me just a few hundred feet off the ground when I was on final. The two previous "close encounters" were back in the 60's and within a couple of weeks of each other. Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com Most midair collisions seem to happen on a line aligned with the center of the runway and on an approach course. The classic midair, and probably the most common, is a low wing airplane making a steep final above a highwing airplane making a shallow final. Once they turn final, neither can see the other. The best cure is a thorough scan of the airport traffic area when approaching and a good look all around during all of the turns in the pattern. I also STRONGLY recommend at least a short wings level portion on the base leg when you can excercise the opportunity to thoroughly scan to your right for aircraft on a straight in approach. Remember, they can be on just about any approach slope from 2 degrees up to around 10 degrees. More than 10 degrees and it is probably a space shuttle and you are landing on the wrong runway! :-) Always look for people 100 feet or so above or below the pattern altitude. Also remember that the former "standard" pattern altitude was 800 feet AGL while the current "standard" pattern altitude seems to be 1000 feet AGL. Most airports use one or the other for their pattern altitude. At a strange airport you may easily find yourself proudly using the wrong one, or, if you are useing the correct one someone else may be using the other. Always check both carefully. Also check the pattern on BOTH sides of the runway. Someone may think there is a right/left hand pattern in effect and be using the incorrect one. When winds are light and variable virtually any runway may be in use. I remember one time starting my flare at the Flying W Ranch in New Jersey and looking up and seeing a Cessna 310 doing the exact same thing at the other end of the runway! It got MY attention! :-) Also be extremely careful if there are intersecting runways. Even if they only intersect or almost intersect at one end. I remember one very interesting landing at Philadelphia Internation back in the sixties. I was in a Piper Apache landing to the west. I was number two after a Boeing 720 landing to the south. Those runways kinda intersect at the east end of the EW runway and the north end of the NS runway. The big Boeing went by and touched down off to my left. I was on short final over the river when I suddenly found my self rolling at a very rapid rate well past ninety degrees. I didn't see anyway possible that I could stop the roll and roll back before I landed so I pushed and cranked in the direction of the roll. I completed the roll and came wings level and then the mains touched down. I really hadn't intended an aileron roll on short final, but that's what happened. My charter pax were two airline pilots flying in for their ride. They were a bit pale when they climbed out of that Peachy Apache! Of course I was the cool calm and collected high time charter jock. I thanked them for the business, closed the door, and proceeded to get takeoff clearance back the way I came in, and took off to the east. As I got out over the river the door popped open. The cool, calm and collected high time charter jock hadn't remembered to latch the darn door. I can say from experience that if you are solo in a Piper Apache and the door pops open you are NOT going to get it closed and latched unless you land. There was no way I was going to turn around and go back into PHL! I flew on down to Bridgeton, NJ and landed there and closed and latched the door. Then I flew on home to MIV. Another day in the life of a charter jock! :-) Highflyer Highflight Aviation Services Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY ) |
#108
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Scared of mid-airs
"Highflyer" wrote in message ... I remember one time starting my flare at the Flying W Ranch in New Jersey and looking up and seeing a Cessna 310 doing the exact same thing at the other end of the runway! It got MY attention! :-) That was probably Bill Whitesell! :-) Dudley |
#109
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Scared of mid-airs
Highflyer schrieb:
I've had thee close encounters since 1963. The last was nearly 10 years ago when landing. The most dangerous near misses are those which you'll never know. Stefan |
#110
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Scared of mid-airs
On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:01:50 +0200, Stefan
wrote: Highflyer schrieb: I've had thee close encounters since 1963. The last was nearly 10 years ago when landing. The most dangerous near misses are those which you'll never know. Near miss. No, I've never had one that almost missed me. The closest was about a foot with the top of the tail of a Comanche under my seat. Although that vertical stabilizer had to be closer to that to the wheels on the old Piper Colt. He was flying the express way low and I do mean low. He had to gain altitude for the overpass and there we were on final for 36. Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com Stefan Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member) (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair) www.rogerhalstead.com |
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