Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By jamespearce
#1572723
My condolences to those affected by this tragic loss. By all accounts, the commanders of the two accident aircraft were highly experienced and their training is unlikely to be an issue. For many of us, the risk of an in flight collision is just not considered serious enough for the high degree of scanning that is required. In my case I can admit to periods of intense looking out but occasionally being distracted by navigation or the radio and becoming less vigilant. If I fly with a passenger, I always ask them to let me know if they spot anything else in the air and that has proved very helpful on occasions. On a few occasions in the past, when I have encountered an uncomfortably close encounter with another aircraft, I have been staggered by how quickly the situation has developed. I think we humans need a little hand here and an agreed electronic standard for devices that detect other aircraft has to be the way forward. I spoke to a Pilot Aware representative at Sywell and he told me it would not be possible to integrate my Garmin 795 with their system because Garmin will not cooperate with the protocol for data exchange. Isn't that counter safety? I would have purchased a system if the ducks had lined up.
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By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1572732
I spoke to a Pilot Aware representative at Sywell and he told me it would not be possible to integrate my Garmin 795 with their system because Garmin will not cooperate with the protocol for data exchange. Isn't that counter safety? I would have purchased a system if the ducks had lined up.


Garmin 795 works with Zaon traffic data, and it works with ADS-B data, so it can't be impossible.

Ian
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1572756
G-BLEW wrote:Garmin 795 works with Zaon traffic data, and it works with ADS-B data, so it can't be impossible.


Depends on the source of the ADS-B data. If it's from Garmin's own products then yes. They won't release their GDL-39 protocol as it's proprietary. Zaon, I think, reverse engineered it. It may be possible to go with reverse engineering, but that would take time that Lee is devoting to other developments at the moment.

It's not impossible, but it's not simple if Garmin won't tell.
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By Rob L
#1572778
rats404 wrote:To provide a bit of context to my earlier statement, Mid-air collision is the thing I fear the most, even though I'm aware that it is extremely unlikely. Using Paul's list...

1) Weather. CFIT or loss of control.
[Rob L snip].


1. I took the time and trouble to get my IR/R (as it is now) to mitigate this risk. I also try to be very conscientious in my flight planning regarding weather and sensible MSA etc.
Rob L snip]


Don't forget the need to turn back, if necessary. "Press-on-itis" is still difficult to overcome for some, and some have only done the "diversion" they did in their skills test / GFT.

[Original post by Paul+Rats' reply both poorly snipped by me for brevity].

Rob L
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By GAFlyer4Fun
#1572846
Paul_Sengupta wrote:
PB wrote:mid-air collisions in GA present a very low, indeed vanishingly small risk


Depends how you measure it. We seem to be averaging one a year, with almost a definition of two aircraft involved (there is the possibility, if small, of more than two colliding). There are around 14 or so aircraft involved in fatal crashes per year in the UK, so that's about 1 in 7 of the aircraft involved in fatal accidents. Very rough figures of course.


Quite. If it was not a direct head on collision for both aircraft, then if just one of them was a few seconds earlier or later the collision would not have happened. How many thousands of flight hours are flown by GA every year in the UK? So chance of a collision occurs for 1 second in how many millions of seconds of GA flying time? Better chance of winning the big prize on the lottery?

Most people consider motorcycling quite dangerous with a high chance of collision with another vehicle even for those that ride sensibly (additional rider training has been proven to mitigate some of that risk). The average rider does 3000 miles per year. If they are lucky enough to do an average of 40mph, that is 75 hours experience per year, perhaps mostly at the weekend when the weather is nice. If they do a lot less miles per year, the insurance premium goes up due to higher risk (rusty skills and road craft?). If they do a lot more miles per year, the insurance premium goes up due to the longer exposure to the risks.
Similarly, high houred GA pilots have had a longer exposure to a variety of aviation risks whilst building up a lot of aviation experience. The vast majority will have a long and happy life without colliding with anything.

A police road crash investigator once told me that if you consider all the events in peoples lives that put two drivers at the same place and time by chance, if either of them got out of bed a second earlier or later on that day the incident would never have occurred! Some could apply that reasoning to aviation collisions, and some will of course disagree. There is an element of chance of something untoward happening in everything we do.

The first airborne near miss I can remember was on my navigation flight test - ended up head to head with a glider in the Alton area and the examiner said "I have control...". We missed that one, although that examiner did go on to have a collision with a glider some years later and everyone survived (plane landed safely with a bit of outer wing damage, and glider pilot used a parachute).

As an AAIB man recently said on TV, an aircraft mid-air collision is very, very rare.

The cheapest thing GA can do to reduce that risk even further is to consider collision risk during route selection, and pick a less obvious route, A few minutes extra flight time wont break the bank.

Perhaps keep that magenta line feature on the left side of the aircraft. Costs nothing.

(Dons tin hat!)
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By GAFlyer4Fun
#1572850
Paul_Sengupta wrote:
G-BLEW wrote:Garmin 795 works with Zaon traffic data, and it works with ADS-B data, so it can't be impossible.


Depends on the source of the ADS-B data. If it's from Garmin's own products then yes. They won't release their GDL-39 protocol as it's proprietary. .... It may be possible to go with reverse engineering, but that would take time that Lee is devoting to other developments at the moment.

It's not impossible, but it's not simple if Garmin won't tell.


I thought it was a fairly standard condition in any software/data licencing agreement that reverse engineering or disassembly of any kind is prohibited. There are also standard conditions about ownership of the stuff. My guess is via a combination of contract law and the Computer Misuse Act, don't reverse engineer anything without the express written permission of the real owner of the stuff. The court cases can be very costly, the penalties significant, potentially career limiting.

All the big companies are quite hot about protecting their IP and copyright and the huge amounts spent developing stuff, and protecting themselves from claims regarding IP, copyright, data protection, licencing, .... . So, it is perfectly reasonable for the smaller companies/individuals to do the same (everyone has to earn a living somehow) but for some reason some people expect some stuff to be a free open book with no restrictions in the name of safety.
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By rats404
#1572870
RobL wrote

Don't forget the need to turn back, if necessary. "Press-on-itis" is still difficult to overcome for some, and some have only done the "diversion" they did in their skills test / GFT.


Absolutely. couldn't agree more. It's the same mindset needed to expect a go around on every approach. :thumleft:
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By T67M
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1572881
Generally I do agree that flying higher is safer, however also remember that under SERA as currently implemented in the UK, the VMC cloud clearance rules above and below 3000' are different. Below 3000' a VFR pilot only needs to be "clear of cloud", but above 3000' they need 1500m/1000' separation from clouds. A cloudbase of 4000' therefore forced VFR pilots to remain below 3000'.

Those pilots who hold a valid IR(R) can declare themselves IFR and fly much closer to cloud above 3000', however this is no longer an option for pilots without some form of IR, and is the primary reason I am currently working to revalidate my own IR(R).
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By MichaelP
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1572883
Very sad for the unlucky people who lost their lives.

None of us who have flown a lot can know how many near misses we have had.
We know about the ones that came close, when we spotted them.

I get a little philosophical about this.
A few years ago in a million million cubic metres of air over a relatively remote place in British Columbia a motor glider and a Cessna 150 collided with the loss of four people and a dog.
How?

One morning I took a Japanese girl flying in the Turbi... Up there at 1,000 feet, straight and level she screamed.
I looked beyond her head and saw a Rans S6 dead ahead... We could have been on the same railway line... How?
I stuck the stick forward and went under the S6 while keeping it in view through the canopy.
It was close, really close...

But I remember driving through Camberley on the A30 with the idiots passing in the middle of the road, and somehow avoiding head on collisions... Fatal collisions on the roads are a fact of life. Sometimes they happen to aircraft too.

The Glen Valley in BC is famous for the concentration of training aeroplanes doing their stuff, airwork and forced landings, and getting upset when someone is perceived to not use the radio frequency correctly.
I never want to be there in a Cessna 152 or 172, you can't see enough. In the Katana you can see everything, but they don't see you so easily.
How there has been no mid air collision so far is simply amazing!

I think the awareness is reduced in places where one does not expect traffic. Collision avoidance systems are supremely helpful where there's little traffic to worry about, while they are a distraction when there's a lot of traffic to worry about.

I suppose we are much more attentive when we are in a place where we expect a lot of traffic.

I have to remember those friends lost when a Tiger Moth and a Piper Warrior collided near the M25... The Sun was low. One into the Sun, the other on an IMC training exercise.
Be perhaps half a wingspan one way or the other and it might have been a fright rather than death.
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By Korenwolf
#1572955
ozplane wrote:I live at the North end of "Mig Alley" between Luton and Stansted and watching aircraft heading home later in the afternoon, it was noticeable that a Vans with some very powerful strobes was by far and away the most visible of the the dozen or so aircraft I saw. Most of them were Vans of one sort or another.


We see a lot of RAF Grob Tutors here at Duxford, and after the two well-publicised mid-airs involving Tutors, it was noticeable that they re-equipped with very high-intensity strobe lights. Much brighter than anything else around, no idea who makes the lights but they do seem like a good idea.
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By gaznav
#1573098
More news here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-42075018?intlink_from_url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-42033805&link_location=live-reporting-story

Vietnamese military pilot in training involved according to the article...

The Vietnamese Ministry of Defence said the crash was caused when the Cessna 152 suddenly dropped in height and hit the tail of the helicopter
By Dominie
#1573211
PB wrote:In terms of mid-air collisions, the biggest single thing you can do to reduce the risk (to sub-vainshingly-low) in the open FIR is to fly around above 2000' or better still above 3000'. There is essentialy no traffic between 2500' and the flight levels. I do accept that the airspace and weather sometimes forces one down lower than that, but if the weather is even marginally sub-optimal, VFR flying pretty much stops in the UK and there is no traffic...

In general, I'm always amazed at how few aircraft there are to bump into.

As an aside, I've never understood the obsession with bimbling round at 1500' (and below) and it does seem to be a peculiarly British thing.

I think another safety factor that one can employ is to not fly at exactly a round figure altitude. Lots of people fly at 2,000ft or 2,500ft on the Regional QNH, so I find 1,800, 2,200 or 2,700 gives that bit of extra safety. Of course it doesn't help if they are on some airfield's QFE...

I'm usually most concerned about how few aircraft I see below 5,000ft - and I worry how many I have missed.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1573215
flybymike wrote:There is a school of thought which believes that so many people now fly around at obscure flight levels, that it is now safer to stick to round numbers. :wink:


Yeah but, no but, yeah but, there's far more obscure levels to choose from than round numbers... :roll:
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