Mid-Air Collision

[Shiny Side Up]

I don't have enough fingers and toes to keep track of all the close calls. I can add another to the list from yesterday. I realised that the thing I say most often to students is "watch where you're going". Low time/frequency pilots have this really bad habit of their eyes scanning their nine o'clock low position than anywhere else. I should say that this also makes for a lot of crooked flying. They also make too many assumptions about stuff regarding their own safety. If you're going to assume, assume that you are at risk. Assume that they don't see you, assume that they didn't hear your radio call, or if they did, assume that they didn't understand it, and assume that they won't necessarily give way.

Something to think about. Air combat is largely decided by who sees who first. If you see them first, you have the initiative, use it to make decisive action.

[iflyforpie]

Gravity is on your side if you push, but a panicky shove on the control column could give you more negative G than your airframe, baggage, or possibly set belts could take

Not likely. Even though negative G design loads are less than positive ones... you have to subtract the one G you are already carrying. So really, you can only pull an additional 2.8 positive G but you can subtract 2.52 G when pushing on a normal category aircraft. Most people chose to pull though... it is an instinct when danger arises that has been passed down from when we were primates hanging in trees...

[Big Pistons Forever]

Both of my close calls were on the base to final turn at an uncontrolled airport. I did the right thing with a mid field join and full circuit only to be cut off by straight in traffic who were not talking on the radio For concentrated bad airmanship it is hard to beat a small uncontrolled airport on a sunny weekend day

[Beefitarian]

Please don't rely on your comm radio as a method of separating aircraft, especially at an uncontrolled airport, where someone may not have a radio, or may be on the wrong freq, have the volume turned down, have the wrong radio selected on the audio panel, may have a faulty ptt/ics configuration that provides carrier but no modulation, etc.

Look outside. Your eyeballs are your primary method of separation. Radio is a very distant second. When you need it the most - when it gets busy - it will fail on you, by design.

As previously pointed out, if the sun is out - the most dangerous time to be at an uncontrolled airport - look on the ground for ONE shadow.

Good points. I'm not as worried about NORDO guys because they will be following procedures for entering the circuit and I should be able to get along with them. Typically they are probably watching for me and keeping some distance since they don't know what kind of pilot they're dealing with and need to be cautious in case others are not properly watching for them.

[cgartly]

The other thing I have learned is to keep your eyes on the target you are trying to avoid. I was flying VFR from Kelowna to Langley last week and I always make a conscious effort to avoid all of the training areas on either side of the river. I treat the river like a highway if I'm heading west I stay on the right side of it, if I'm heading east I stay on the left side of it. I also stay high as long as Vancouver Terminal will let me as my feeling is that most of the local transient traffic will be down lower.

On this particular flight I saw traffic heading straight at me and getting bigger. I did as the op stated and pushed the yoke forward, I lost about 1000' quite quickly and the target was well above me, then I decided maybe I should drop down a bit more just in case he/she does something stupid so I slowly started dropping down some more, that's when the dumb ass altered his heading to the left and came down really fast, I'm not sure if they were simulating an aggressive spiral dive or what but I'm sure glad I dropped the extra altitude as they passed over head with probably only 300-400' to spare.

So note to those of you that fly in the lower mainland, if you're doing training maneuvers stick to the frigin practice areas!

[schmoo]

I learned to fly this past year at what I believe they called the busiest uncontrolled airport in Canada. Not sure if that is true, but it certainly seems possible.

During one of my x-countries, my instructor made calls on two separate occasions to potentially conflicting traffic. After the second time, he commented that he rarely has to make even one call, and found it very strange that he had to make two calls during a single flight. As a total newbie, I always figured that planes were constantly just missing each other, and always wondered why there isn't a collision per day. Without any real experience to drawn upon, I find myself still wondering why there aren;t more collisions. I see a map full of airways that intersect all over the place and prescribed altitudes based on track, add in a bunch of other factore such as radios, sun, fatigue, distractions, etc., and mathematically it just seems to me there would be a lot more accidents. Makes me wonder why I learned to fly if I thought this to be the case.

I'm glad that I learned to fly at such a busy place, but I know the possibility of becoming complacent is always there.

Regarding the turn versus dive/climb queswtion, is it safe to assume that the "turn right" rule became the recommended practice since if both pilots make a lateral change of position, then there is no longer a conflict...however, if both pilots climb or descend simultaneously, then the conflict still remains. Would make sense to me that if you see someone first, then a descent would be a good choice, but what if the other pilot thinks the same way ? Also wondering, is it as easy to detect differences in altitude as it is to detect differences in lateral position ? I'm not very good at either yet, but I'm getting there.

[Beefitarian]

You're right shmoo.

If you notice you are too close the dive would be way better for the reasons the Colonal states. He's a bit extreme but in extreme cases he's one of the guys to talk to.