Near Death Experience (Mid-Air) This Morning

[Mooneymite]

This thread exposes the fallacy of "see and avoid".  After years of flying with TCAS, or having traffic pointed out to me in VMC and not being able to spot it, I'm convinced the un-aided eyeball is extremely ineffective.

 

We really operate under what might better be described as "The Big Sky" theory.  When my brother was working on anti-missile systems, he assured me it is actually very difficult to get two airborn objects to collide.  Difficult, but not impossible.....

 

So far, no one has mentioned the often touted technique of never flying precisely on even 1000's, or 500's altitude on the premise that most other pilots do.

[Oldguy]

I can tell you what speed brakes are for - it's when ATC say "Mooney 67Z, I have converging flight paths of you and another plane. Can you descend 500 feet?". And he was absolutely correct. Saw the Cessna pass about 500' over us about 3 minutes later. We were both heading east at an obtuse angle to each other. Would have never seen him....

[Bennett]

TIS-B. can save your life. On my first flight after having a GDL-88 installed in Arizona, I was returning to San Carlos, CA . After my turn northward at Palmdale, I was northbound at 8,500'. I was watching traffic on my GTNs when I spotted an aircraft at 12 miles, at 0 altitude difference (8'500') bore sighted on my course. I kept changing range scales, and watched him continue directly on course. I was on Flight Following, but there was no ATC call out. At two miles he was still on a perfectly reciprocal course at at my altitude, so I dove down about 250' and watched an RV pass directly overhead, totally oblivious to my presence. I called ATC, but they didn't see him. Since then, thanks to the

GDL 88 I've seen more traffic out than I had ever seen with just eyeballs - sometimes the traffic was potentially dangerous.

[ArtVandelay]

I've seen the opposite, ATC calling out traffic (737) that didn't show up on my traffic display. Best to have both in addition to eyeballs, and I do try to stay away from the 500' altitudes

[MooneyPTG]

Living in Green Bay, I don't fly the week of the EAA. Just trying to stay safe, they don't need anymore planes in the air that week.

[Bravoman]

I've had a close call that was no farther than a few feet.  

 

Flying from F45 to PBI, a grand total of 11 miles. Extending my Eastbound downwind at F45, I climb to 1200 and call PBI. PBI gives me a squawk, tells me radar contact. About a minute or two later, PBI barks at me with 7CJ suggest immediate climb, with an urgency I've never heard before. I do so right away. 

 

Within seconds, a Southbound Navajo goes just under me at a very high rate of speed. He's Not talking to anybody and blasts right into PBI's class C airspace and out again, off into the sunset. That was the closest call possible without catastrophe. I honestly thought we might hit. 

 

Never did find out who it was. All I can say is that they were flying like idiots in uncontrolled and controlled airspace. And, Navajo's are pretty darn fast down low.

I may have almost run into the same guy yesterday coming back from marsh Harbour to Ft Pierce yesterday. Wx was closing in and I was trying to shoot the gps 28L. All of a sudden the tower controller calls traffic at 11 o'clock. What looked like a navahoe was flying in the approach path and did a turn east back out over the Atlantic what seemed like no more than 300 ft in front of me at about my altitude. The controller commented he didn't know who he was and was not talking to him but apparently was in and out of the class D a couple of times. Extremely unnerving to say the least. I ended up going missed and diverting to PBI

[Rik]

Love my skywatch, adding adsb traffic to it via L3 lynx shortly and always get advisories and I've still had closeish calls...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I did my first half of my Solo X Country today, have Garmin G3X with ADS-B, was using Flight Following and was landing into a Class D airport and in contact with the tower as I was on final. 

 

I got a call from the Tower at KSTS, You've got traffic off your nose at 10 o'clock, no radio contact with him" the tower stated... I could not see him... Then the tower said "he's off your 9 o'clock" I looked over and he was 200' off my left, almost same altitude as me, not on my traffic screen and he was not talking to the tower.. He was a butterscotch color'd 152-172? and being that we are in the Brown season here in CA he blended into the surrounding background.

 

Moral, nothing can be 100% but good thing the tower had him on radar!

 

Screen shot of the Garmin G3X

[bonal]

Last week on a 5 mile final for STS 14 tower called out Moomey 14u traffic your altitude at our 2 o'clock that was uncontrolled and in their class D and just as I spotted it he gave me a left 20 degree turn. I advised I had the traffic no factor he then thanked me and cleared us for 14. All the tower controllers that have been our good fortune to fly with have been excellent as well

[aviatoreb]

I did my first half of my Solo X Country today, have Garmin G3X with ADS-B, was using Flight Following and was landing into a Class D airport and in contact with the tower as I was on final. 

 

I got a call from the Tower at KSTS, You've got traffic off your nose at 10 o'clock, no radio contact with him" the tower stated... I could not see him... Then the tower said "he's off your 9 o'clock" I looked over and he was 200' off my left, almost same altitude as me, not on my traffic screen and he was not talking to the tower.. He was a butterscotch color'd 152-172? and being that we are in the Brown season here in CA he blended into the surrounding background.

 

Moral, nothing can be 100% but good thing the tower had him on radar!

 

Screen shot of the Garmin G3X

 

I am really jealous of your GTX - I saw it at Oshkosh last week.  Gorgeous system.  Someday I hope they will let me install it in my Mooney.  Until then I drool.  And I use my FAA-approved "safe for certified airplanes" GDL39-3d on the glare shield, and ipad on the yoke - "because its safer" to use temporarily mounted avionics if its certified.

[aviatoreb]

TIS-B. can save your life. On my first flight after having a GDL-88 installed in Arizona, I was returning to San Carlos, CA . After my turn northward at Palmdale, I was northbound at 8,500'. I was watching traffic on my GTNs when I spotted an aircraft at 12 miles, at 0 altitude difference (8'500') bore sighted on my course. I kept changing range scales, and watched him continue directly on course. I was on Flight Following, but there was no ATC call out. At two miles he was still on a perfectly reciprocal course at at my altitude, so I dove down about 250' and watched an RV pass directly overhead, totally oblivious to my presence. I called ATC, but they didn't see him. Since then, thanks to the

GDL 88 I've seen more traffic out than I had ever seen with just eyeballs - sometimes the traffic was potentially dangerous.

 

That's strange Bennett.  I thought that ATC can see everything that your TIS-B picks up.  Now I am misunderstanding the system that is transmitting TIS-B to my airplane. I thought it was simply transmitting the same data that is appearing on the controllers scope.  That that is (I thought) all the airplanes with transponders on (assuming that we have an ADSB out as well to trigger the system to transmit to our ADSB in receivers - which you and I both have - or someone else is nearby to kindly trigger the system for you - which is sporadic).

[aviatoreb]

Living in Green Bay, I don't fly the week of the EAA. Just trying to stay safe, they don't need anymore planes in the air that week.

 

I hear ya!

 

Many of you may have seen the photograph I took of my TIS-B traffic on my ipad I took upon departure from KFLD on Wednesday.

 

http://mooneyspace.com/gallery/image/36875-oshkosh-traffic-just-a-few-airplanes/

 

That's A LOT of airplanes. Enough to make a Chicago O'Haire controller quesy.  For my strategy, the vast majority of them seemed to be quite low, so I climbed to the mid teens as quickly as possible starting from the controlled Fond du Lac terminal area.

[Yetti]

Today's radar systems are supposed to have auto collision detection assuming you both have working mode C transponders.

And it is no fun when they ca11 you with a hit of urgency in their voice and have the beeping going in the background

[OBX-Pilot]

I often think of Pogo of the Okefenokee Swamp's statement that "We have met the enemy and it is us..."  on this kind of thing. I learned to fly in 1968 at Ft Wolters, TX. There were easily a thousand plus of us fledging almost aviators flying a variety of OH-13s, OH-23s and TH-55 all crowded into very constrained altitude and very small area. But our heads were on a constant swivel and there were very few midairs. Of course in those primary trainers there was very little to look at in the cockpit...so it was easy to keep our attention outside.

 

Jump forward to last week. I am flying a '07 Stationaire with a dual display G1000 glass cockpit, a Garmin 696 backup to the backup and an Ipad loaded with aviation apps. There is just so much golly gee neat stuff to look at and so many buttons to push and dials to turn ... 

 

When I was working on my double I the CFII I flew with the most me hammered into me over and over that 50% of my job was looking out for other traffic and I had to instruct with the other 50%. It was just sooooo easy to get task saturated inside the cockpit teaching instruments. The same is true with the modern cockpit and it doesn't take much. A Garmin 496 can steal you attention for the critical period of time it takes another aircraft to go from a speck ... to eternity.

 

See and avoid can work ... but I have to work it...and so does the other guy. I use the other resources as augmentation...

 

 

[Rik]

I am really jealous of your GTX - I saw it at Oshkosh last week.  Gorgeous system.  Someday I hope they will let me install it in my Mooney.  Until then I drool.  And I use my FAA-approved "safe for certified airplanes" GDL39-3d on the glare shield, and ipad on the yoke - "because its safer" to use temporarily mounted avionics if its certified.

 

It's got an auto pilot as well! This makes going places really ... To Easy...  Today I'm off to HAF, KMRY, then over to C83, KVCB, fuel in KCCR and then back to KDVO and all I have to do is push a few buttons and it gives me the course line. I've plotted this course out prior as I need my last 2.5hr of solo X Country but the G3 makes performing this so easy. 

 

Traffic screen as well as traffic on the chart & WPT Pages.

 

Use flight following just in case though...

[Hank]

Dadgum, rik! Whatchu flyin? That's an impressive panel, and not just the avionics.

[Shadrach]

So "big sky" theory would have failed twice today.  I was on my way back from Annapolis this afternoon and stayed low to avoid the Bravo on the south side of BWI.  It turned into a hazy day.

 

Potomac approach calls traffic, C172 at 1:00, opposite direction same altitude 2 miles. 

 

No contact for either of us

 

Potomac calls 1 mile to both of us, 12:00 converging, no urgency in her voice at all.

 

I am feeling quite urgent. I see the traffic at .3 miles offset to our left about 500ft slightly higher than us (maybe 20') I can see the pilot and passenger as they pass by at 250kts closure.

 

10 minutes later I'm NW bound exiting the SFRA at WOOLY and call FDK for transition at 3000. She has a Hawker that is climbing out and beginning its turn north headed to a small airport 25 miles to the North. I spot him about 5 NM away in the turn and then he just kind of goes stationary.  After about a minute I can see the target growing in size and I detect some movement.  I pull up to 3500 and watch him go under the leading edge of the left wing and pop out under the trailing edge of the right, had I not climbed I would have been T-boned (assuming he took no evasive action).

 

Be careful out there...

[Shadrach]

Dadgum, rik! Whatchu flyin? That's an impressive panel, and not just the avionics.

Im guessing its an RV12...  

[Rik]

Im guessing its an RV12...  

 

BINGO.. It's the least expensive plane to take lessons in at this school

 

When in LA, I take lessons at Chino in a Cherokee that's 180 different to this plane..

[MyNameIsNobody]

Ignorance was bliss, I guess. Wow, that is a lot of input to counter "Big Sky" in last couple days. Might have to take some engine fund and divert it to ADSB....be safe everybody.

[wishboneash]

5−5−8. See and Avoid
a. Pilot. When meteorological conditions permit,
regardless of type of flight plan or whether or not
under control of a radar facility, the pilot is
responsible to see and avoid other traffic, terrain, or
obstacles.

[Mooneymite]

In searching for traffic in the big sky, the problem is that the threatening target doesn't move on the windshield.  The target that maintains a constant place on your windscreen is the one that you'll hit (or will hit you).  The human eye is pretty good at picking out movement, but the dot that never moves.....is the one that will kill you.

 

Constant bearing, decreasing range......

 

In one of my near misses (actually it was a "near hit"), the intruder 172 aircraft was behind my (Mooney) left windshield frame and never moved across the windscreen at all.  He passed above me by mere feet.  Goodyear tires, as I remember. 

 

In another, the ultralight appeared in the 757 windscreen so fast, we never even had time to disconnect the autopilot.  I was sure we'd read about that one in the paper!

 

See and avoid....yeah, right!  I'll take all the flight following and radar separation I can get.

[MyNameIsNobody]

5−5−8. See and Avoid

a. Pilot. When meteorological conditions permit,

regardless of type of flight plan or whether or not

under control of a radar facility, the pilot is

responsible to see and avoid other traffic, terrain, or

obstacles.

Yup, OK. Got that and it worked in my close call. Both saw imminent collision and avoided catastrophe at about a five second to twisted metal timeframe. From this thread it is not that rare. I have had ten close and two really close. This was first that if no turn would have likely hit. I wonder how many I have missed?

[MyNameIsNobody]

I was on extreme south end of even plus 500 and other Mooney was on extreme north end of even plus 500...now I am reading that some avoid that altitude 'cause everybody else is there...

Our angle was pretty severe...neither one of us was "wrong", but both close to being dead right

[ryoder]

When I fly with other pilots, most of them comment that I look out more than anyone they have ever flown with.  There is a good reason... I have had way too many near death experiences, and have probably run out of luck.  It can happen even when you are trying your best due to optical, visibility, and vision limitations.

 

Especially with all the electronic gadgets to look at and rely on in the cockpit, I see more and more pilots not looking out enough.  Be careful out there!

 

I learned to fly at a towered field and got a little lazy. Now at KZPH we have insanity in the pattern. There are two active runways and the guys towing gliders and dropping parachutes use runway 19 and 1 both ways all day long. There is so much going on you really need to fly defensively so I am in the habit of scanning a lot. I also fly victor airways at the appropriate altitudes. I assume I'll have fewer chances at random crossing traffic that way.

[Hank]

I learned to fly at a towered field and got a little lazy. Now at KZPH we have insanity in the pattern. There are two active runways and the guys towing gliders and dropping parachutes use runway 19 and 1 both ways all day long. There is so much going on you really need to fly defensively so I am in the habit of scanning a lot. I also fly victor airways at the appropriate altitudes. I assume I'll have fewer chances at random crossing traffic that way.

Those of us who fly Direct will be crossing the airways at random times, in random places and heading in all 360 possible degrees of direction. I would. It expect flying airways to reduce traffic crossing your route.

But it does sound like you have good eyes-outside traffic skills! That will definitely help.