Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:40 am
#1418718
Not having a midair collision in ones flying career is a matter of luck IMHO.
1. Traffic awareness systems are useless in high traffic areas as pilots soon learn to ignore them, there's too much going on outside.
The number of times the TAWS audio warning goes off when I've been on final approach because someone decides to taxy with the transponder turned on, and then they justify it by saying that at some airports there's a ground control radar system.
I teach not to turn the transponder knob to ALT until a clearance to enter the runway has been received.
TAWS is good in remote areas where you soon get empty field myopia and a sudden alert is useful to wake you up.
There was a midair between a motor glider and a Cessna 150 a couple of years ago.
How in a billion cubic metres of empty air did two tiny aeroplanes meet at precisely the same point?
Luck.
It's similar to what I tell myself, "there's always one". The number of times I have approached a junction in a car, not expecting another vehicle, but there's one, and if I had not stopped there would have been a collision. Yet there's not another vehicle for miles in either direction. Why does fate have such malicious timing?
2. Radio position reports are seldom accurate. Try to be accurate!
"Approaching a point from a direction" is better than calling over it when two miles away.
Glen Valley is a hive of activity, and I never want to be in a Cessna in there, yet there can be many Cessnas flitting around. The DA20 has so much better visibility for spotting them.
Horror for me is a gentle turn in a Cessna in busy airspace, I'd rather lift my wings and do a steep turn, get it over with.
In the Lower Mainland of Vancouver BC you can go to few places without a transponder.
Everyone has Mode C, some have Mode S, some have traffic distraction systems.
But eyes come first, there's too much traffic to rely on in-cockpit devices.
Until a reliable traffic system is developed to take control of the aircraft to avoid a collision, you are reliant on your eyes, the mental traffic picture you have based on the calls people make, and luck.
And the "two aircraft approaching head on should both turn to the right" does not always work, you don't have time.
When it happened to me I pushed, 'kept the opposing traffic in sight and went under him. Pitch was more effective than roll.
MichaelP
Wandering the World