How many cheaters are there?

[Oscar Avalle]

Ugh - what's up with the Pilatus drivers?  I would have thought that those higher end airplane drivers would live to an even more professional standard?  I had an unpleasant experience with a Pilatus driver last summer - from my home airport a Pilatus was just starting up engine as I was taxiing to rwy 24 which the mild winds favored - but slightly longer taxi.  They (two pilots) saw me go that way as we were parked near each other.  I radioed my intentions the whole way as usual.  Did my run up announced I was taking the runway and just the my tcas beeps - there goes the Pilatus on Rwy 6 on take off roll - no radio announce - nothing - rolling in the opposite direction - I think they took my radio announcement as a race to beat me to the line.  10 more seconds and I would have been on the runway pointing right at them.  But they were listening I am sure and they knew that.

 

I believe that this particular Pilatus pilot that I met was engaged in some non legitimate shady activities... 

[201er]

Also, give a VFR position report. Identifying yourself as being on the VOR Alpha approach for Runway 19, for instance, is of little use to anyone monitoring the unicom frequency who is unfamiliar with the approach. This is a pet peeve of mine for the military rotorwing training traffic at my small non-towered home field.

Jim

When practicing approaches in VMC, I agree. When doing it in actual, there better not be someone "monitoring the unicom frequency who is unfamiliar with the approach."

[N601RX]

Also, give a VFR position report. Identifying yourself as being on the VOR Alpha approach for Runway 19, for instance, is of little use to anyone monitoring the unicom frequency who is unfamiliar with the approach. This is a pet peeve of mine for the military rotorwing training traffic at my small non-towered home field.

Jim

We have a lot of military rotorwing training up here also.  They will fly across the last 1/3 of a 3000 ft runway @50' above the treetops.  You can't see them until your above the trees.

[N201MKTurbo]

Nothing you say in a forum can be used aginst you in court, the defense is that it was just a fabrication, you just made it up for the heck of it.

 

Everything would need to be proven by other means, but then again, let's not get them looking things over with a fine toothed comb.

[RJBrown]

That day there was no VFR. The cloud deck was below minimums for VFR operations. No one should have taken off without a clearance. If there had been VFR under the cloud deck we would have landed. Approach minimums there are 2600' AGL. At that altitude the fog was below us. Heber sits in a valley. The bowl was full of soup. As I over flew the airport and saw that runway enviornment was not visible the cheater popped right through the fog. I am sure he thought it no more than a minor inconvinience. By 1000'AGL he was above the fog. As long as everyone else followed the rules he had no one to run in to.

[PTK]

The system is excellent in promoting safety, but like anything else, it isn't perfect. It becomes less so when rules are bent or broken. This discussion reinforces this and also the important concept of establishing and adhering to personal minimums, and the extra layer of safety it provides. Example, at my home field we have the VOR 26 approach which has 640 foot minimums and it's offset by about 25 degrees from rw center line. Sure, you can be on an IFR plan and legally shoot that approach to 640 feet. However, the potential exists that you'd be shaking hands with VFR traffic just as you break out and busy looking for the runway to line up. He'd be at the same altitude and technically just as legal! My personal minimum in these situations: double. On this approach 1200 feet!

We also have a new approach, GPS 26. This is a beauty. It's a straight in approach down to 480 smack right in the middle of the 19 approach into N14 (flying W)! You can potentially descend legally right on top of "legal" VFR traffic taking off on 19 from N14.

Again, I personally double minimums in these situations.

[danb35]

Nothing you say in a forum can be used aginst you in court, the defense is that it was just a fabrication, you just made it up for the heck of it.

Anything you say in a forum, or anywhere else, can absolutely be used against you in court.  You may, of course, present other evidence to contradict it (including your own testimony), but if your only counter is that you were lying when you made your post, your credibility to the judge and/or jury isn't going to look too good.  A better argument is likely to be that you didn't actually post it, but it can absolutely be introduced if otherwise relevant.

 

That said, the bigger concern is likely to be FAA enforcement action, and in that case there's no court or rules of evidence involved--it's all up to what the inspector feels like.

[AmigOne]

The incident described by Antares is a serious one.  However it is also possible that he was communicating with ATC and from the ground Antares could not hear the transmissions (did he mention his call sign during the approach?).  On the other hand the Skyhawk would not be asking for flight following after the miss since he would have been on an IFR clearance.  I would have asked ATC upon initial contact if the Skyhawk that that just missed at KDED was on an IFR flight plan (I would also have reported the 3000' thick cloud coverage) .  If he was not on an IFR clearance ATC might have quickly become interested in getting the radar tracking on that airplane. 

[gregwatts]

Nothing you say in a forum can be used aginst you in court, the defense is that it was just a fabrication, you just made it up for the heck of it.

 

Everything would need to be proven by other means, but then again, let's not get them looking things over with a fine toothed comb.

 

I think you are wrong on that!

[FloridaMan]

The incident described by Antares is a serious one.  However it is also possible that he was communicating with ATC and from the ground Antares could not hear the transmissions (did he mention his call sign during the approach?).  On the other hand the Skyhawk would not be asking for flight following after the miss since he would have been on an IFR clearance.  I would have asked ATC upon initial contact if the Skyhawk that that just missed at KDED was on an IFR flight plan (I would also have reported the 3000' thick cloud coverage) .  If he was not on an IFR clearance ATC might have quickly become interested in getting the radar tracking on that airplane. 

 

There were two separate airplanes other than me in that exchange. One was on approach; the other I heard call for flight following a minute after I had cleared the clouds. I assume he departed after me. 

 

The inbound VOR23 approach was being broadcast on CTAF, which I was monitoring and speaking my intentions during taxi. When he went missed, I saw a blue and white twin pass over me while I was holding short of RWY 5 -- I'm guessing it belonged to ATP and an instructor was having the student shoot an approach. I assume that if there was someone with a 5 minute release window on the ground for the opposite runway that ATC would not have cleared that other aircraft for an approach. It was strange coming in to that airport that day as well. ATC asked me if I wanted to cancel IFR and to expect a visual approach. It was anything but VMC there and I have a feeling that ATC may have cleared that other aircraft thinking that it was VMC at the field. 

 

After departure I switched to my departure frequency, climbed through the clouds (which I'm still as nervous as a whore in church doing), popped up through the overcast and I hear the other plane call up asking for flight following. There was no hole in that overcast. 

[Hank]

Here's an interesting writeup about cheating, how/why it happens, and the all-too-frequent results:

 

http://www.flyingmag.com/technique/weather/clouds?page=0,0

[M016576]

Depending how thick the layer is he probably could have gotten MVFR clearance. That way he would have been legal.

MVFR isn't really a clearance or a flight rules per say, it's shorthand for a low, but legal, VFR condition (1000-3000ft ceilings and 3-5 NM vis.)

If RJ observed the field correctly, then the only legal way the pilot could have taken off in such low IFR conditions would have been through an IFR flight plan. I think his point was that he didn't hear him on the radio and it was a non radar environment, so in a likelihood, this pilot was not on an IFR flight plan, this making it illegal.

What you are thinking of is probably Special VFR. Under a special VFR clearance, so long as the pilot can see the ground and has 1nm visability, he can take off legally and seek better weather.

The thing about SVFR is that you must be in controlled airspace to use it, so if RJ is correct and this field didn't have class D airspace or better, then it was illegal. If the field was class D, then this is the likely scenario (as RJ was probably on center freq, and from altitude, fog can be deceptive).

[RJBrown]

Hank great article but slightly off topic. That article is more about newbie pilot mistakes, mistakes that become cheating if intentional.

Here we are talking about intentionally cheating. I used to fly into Oceanside CA and use CRQ airport to visit family in Escondido. Often I would need a clearance to get out through the marine layer. With a tower at CRQ I was stuck if I could not file IFR. 10 mile up the beach OKB is uncontrolled. Some cheater could pop up through the marine layer VFR. Time it just wrong with a bit thicker layer than the cheater expected and we could be shareing the same piece of air.

[Jerry 5TJ]

... when on an IFR flight plan into a nontowered airport to listen to UNICOM on the way in 10+ miles out on the second radio, esp if there are VFR conditions below the layer on the way in so as no one is surprised by a legal VFR doing touch and go or something while listening to the ATC on the other radio.

Great advice, but I find it doesn't always work as expected...  I was on an IFR approach into W82 last summer.  Popped out at about 3500 AGL. well above MDA, several miles out on the approach.  Nobody talking on UNICOM, no targets on the TCAS.  All clear, right?  Then, zip, one glider went by.  Next moment, two more.  Then an L-19 tow plane.  Turns out none of them carry radios, let alone transponders.   All of us were legal, I was just expecting to see and hear transmissions they could not make.

[WardHolbrook]

The closest I ever came to dying in an airplane was a few years back. We were on descent into an airport in central Florida and solid IFR. Some non-instrument rated Bozo in a Bonanza was making a "transponder off", "autopilot climb" trying to get on top. He flashed by us within a couple of hundred feet. I let approach know what happened and they tracked him to his destination. The last I heard, he got to spend some quality one-on-one time with one of the friendly representatives of the Administrator. Any more, I don't have very much sympathy for cheaters - at best they're a menace to themselves, at worst they are a menace to anyone who happens to be with or around them. I'll rat them out every time, but that's just me.

[bd32322]

The closest I ever came to dying in an airplane was a few years back. We were on descent into an airport in central Florida and solid IFR. Some non-instrument rated Bozo in a Bonanza was making a "transponder off", "autopilot climb" trying to get on top. He flashed by us within a couple of hundred feet. I let approach know what happened and they tracked him to his destination. The last I heard, he got to spend some quality one-on-one time with one of the friendly representatives of the Administrator. Any more, I don't have very much sympathy for cheaters - at best they're a menace to themselves, at worst they are a menace to anyone who happens to be with or around them. I'll rat them out every time, but that's just me.

Good outcome, both for the other pilot and yourself.

Pretty scary tho !

[bd32322]

Great advice, but I find it doesn't always work as expected...  I was on an IFR approach into W82 last summer.  Popped out at about 3500 AGL. well above MDA, several miles out on the approach.  Nobody talking on UNICOM, no targets on the TCAS.  All clear, right?  Then, zip, one glider went by.  Next moment, two more.  Then an L-19 tow plane.  Turns out none of them carry radios, let alone transponders.   All of us were legal, I was just expecting to see and hear transmissions they could not make.

The airport I fly to or fly over sometimes also has glider activity. But they so far have always had a spotter on the ground with a radio thankfully!