Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852530
Cub wrote:
TopCat wrote:My worst ever was much closer than 5s.

It was... look up, see plane, enormous, absolutely head to head, roll right and pull, he flashed past underneath my wings. The whole thing over in 3s or less.

I didn't stop shaking for many minutes. That was about 25 years ago. Nothing remotely as close as that since. As far as I know...


Can you point us at the Airprox report for that event. I am assuming at Cat A?

I'm absolutely certain it was Cat A. If I'd been a second later fiddling about with whatever I was fiddling about with, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here to annoy everyone. The wings were just lines (so no vertical separation more than inches); the bit in the middle was just the tiny front cross section, no fuselage at all.

He didn't change course at all in that second I was reacting.

I didn't file it. It was very early in my flying career; it was just two pilots in the open FIR (somewhere between OCK and BIG) in poor vis. There it was, and then it was gone. It was a single, low wing, other than that I have no idea what it was. I looked round in the turn, couldn't even find him again.

I would file it now, even though it would be just a useless data point. I reckon they'd only class it as B, maximum, as see and avoid did in fact work - just. And they explicitly ignore any "but if I hadn't..." in their assessment. Which seems utterly rubbish to me, and renders the whole reporting system virtually pointless.

Ever since then, however, I get an exponentially-increasing buildup of stress whenever I'm head down for more than a couple of seconds.
User avatar
By AndyR
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852558
I’m with 2Ds on this one. I wish I wasn’t but the ‘feedback’ on two previous submissions had been misplaced at worst, naive at best. Ironically that first one was with a forumite I had been eating curry with the night before. That was very nearly our last meal. Both on a Traffic Service but on different frequencies, as is the way around the peripheries of London sadly. Lots of considerations and things that could be learned, but very little of substance in the report when it was done and very much a bent towards commercial air transport.

That lack of realism to how GA works compared to CAT led to me not bothering to report the third. However the other pilot did so I was ‘obliged’ to then write a report. It was put down as a Class B I think, but was more like a Class A IMHO. Which incidentally, if I had banked right, neither aircraft would be here now. Our wings crossed….I’ve flown formation sorties further apart.
2Donkeys, T67M, Iceman liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852860
AndyR wrote:Which incidentally, if I had banked right, neither aircraft would be here now. Our wings crossed….I’ve flown formation sorties further apart.

So he went left? What made you not go right? What did you do?
User avatar
By AndyR
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852863
He was just enough to the right of head on and vertical separation was such, that either of us banking right would have had the wings hitting the other.
You don’t really think when you’re that close. You just react. I passed just under him, each just to the others right. He appeared to be commencing a left bank at that point. So I pushed and he turned left.

You only realise that afterwards though when your mind replays it.
User avatar
By Charles Hunt
#1852870
IIRC Andy's incident, he was advised that he should have instructed the ATC unit to open another position so they could provide an upgraded service.

Try that with Farnborough West on a summer weekend.
User avatar
By Corsican
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852911
After I gained my PPL, I was just north of Reading tracking south, looked down at my plog (did not have Sky Demon), looked up and saw an RV, same level, cross left to right perhaps 200-400 metres in front of me; it happened in a few seconds. I had a camera facing forward and found the clip recently and I can hear me saying « and that’s why you keep your head up and f&@king looking out! ». If I had been a few seconds faster, I guess the RV could have pulled more easily than I could have done anything in the club PA-28, or maybe not.

The thing is, look out or not, it only takes a few seconds of distraction or not looking out in the right direction to miss something. I really try to have a constant left to right and back again scan, but it was my son who spotted a Harvard climbing out of Goodwood last weekend (no risk for us, but he was behind and to my lower right and I was going to turn right, above him).

During my PPL training, the instructor was (rightly) particular about taking off and landing on the centreline. Good discipline in a nose wheel, especially if going for the airlines I guess. When I switched to tail wheel, one of the first things I was told was to keep the centreline to my left as it is easier on grass to ensure alignment, which works for me!