Year is a ton if you ask me
If it happens to you, sure.
But for driving regulatory policy, it’s nothing. Especially as there is no real solution for Class G and the lack of taxpayer ATC funding.
Sometimes, things happen. After the famous RAF air experience Grob mid-air, they equipped all their Grobs with TCAS, and a SN3500 EHSI, at a cost I would estimate at 30k-40k per aircraft. They did go to probably the only shop in the UK which doesn’t make a hash of it (unlike the one I got to do mine) and spent 7 figures – despite the Mk 1 Eyeball being the cornerstone of UK pilot training! A previously unthinkable admission of reality which has not yet propagated down to the PPL scene. But then, post Mull of Kintyre, the RAF looks awfully bad if a pilot gets killed, whereas if a PPL holder gets killed there is no comeback on anybody, and if a PPL student gets killed there is no comeback on the school.
What can also happen is that an ATC airfield is prevented from downgrading to AFIS by the CAA if they have had too many near misses reported. No way Shoreham (due to mid-airs, and traffic density) would ever be allowed to downgrade, for example… or Redhill (due to Gatwick proximity, probably). They can downgrade only if they go unlicensed, which then removes CAA protection of the approaches and exposes the place to the “farmer” owning the field at the end of the runway growing fast growing conifers and eventually shutting it down, via the airfield having to implement a displaced threshold which reduces their most valuable traffic and thus income.
Thank you.
Annex 5
A near collision, on the ground or in the air, with another aircraft, terrain or obstacle (4) requiring an emergency avoidance manoeuvre to avoid a collision.
which would suggest in most Airprox situations a report is not mandatory.
I got the impression that Howard thought that it required “an emergency avoidance manoeuvre to avoid a collision”!
I can imagine that you can have a need for avoiding action in the open FIR without it being an Airprox. But I cannot see how you can have an Airprox without the need for some sort of avoiding action. If the pilots didn’t feel the need for avoiding action, isn’t that just aircraft passing each other?
Peter wrote:
If it happens to you, sure.
2 are way too much for me, I’d probably get killed after the first so the second would be even more unlikely to happen :)
Where do you get the 2/Year number? I’ve seen you post it before but couldn’t find anything close (didn’t look super far though, and from your post I suspect I might not have military-military collisions)
Howard wrote:
he had not spoken to the ground station and was happily flying through their ATZ without speaking to themAren’t ATZs reserved for take-off and landing traffic only anymore?
It is also a possibility that you overheard his call and he had you clearly in sight the whole time (as he claimed).Why avoid at the last moment then?
Arne wrote:
Aren’t ATZs reserved for take-off and landing traffic only anymore?
There is no standard for the meaning of an ATZ, except that it should be established “for the protection of aerodrome traffic”. The rest is up to national rules.
In Sweden the rule is that flight in the ATZ is permitted only in connection with take-off and landing.
I the UK the ATZ seems to mark what is called the “vicinity” of the airport in the Rules of the Air, i.e. the area where an airport tower controls all traffic, even in class G airspace.
It’s a shame that this wasn’t standardised with SERA.
bookworm wrote:
I can imagine that you can have a need for avoiding action in the open FIR without it being an Airprox. But I cannot see how you can have an Airprox without the need for some sort of avoiding action. If the pilots didn’t feel the need for avoiding action, isn’t that just aircraft passing each other?
It is interesting. My first near miss was when another twin passed directly underneath me, I still hate to imagine how close it was. I am pretty certain he never saw me, and I never saw him (until just after we had passed). I think this is your second “argument”. There was never a case of taking avoiding action. My recent encounter (which was the subject of an Airprox) resulted in a TA which alerted me to the traffic and cause to take avoiding action but there was no risk as a consequence of the TA, but there would have been a risk without the TA, which is your first “argument”.
And maybe for other pilots to learn.
Here’s the video. I’ll leave you to judge how close it was. It was however very scary. The other plane DID have its transponder switched on and had taken off from the airfield in question about 3 minutes beforehand.
It happened in the overhead at Earls Colne (EGSR) and it seems that the other pilot was a student. (He also sounds slightly arrogant which worries me.)
As the Brits here will see, the other pilot is flying through the overhead the wrong way! (Overhead joins that day were south to north across the numbers, and then a deadside descent to the north of the east-west runway. The other pilot however flies across the runway in the overhead from the north to the south. Hence we meet almost head-on in the overhead.)
Worryingly, at 250kts the PowerFlarm can’t detect the two planes’ collision course and simply beeps as the other plane passes me (I think / hope it would be different if the other plane had ADS-B out, or Flarm allowing the device to detect direction, rather than just height and distance.) Can I however point out that the Mark One Eyeballs worked in this case… Although it all happened so quickly I did not take avoiding action. That bothers me too.
Let’s remember to keep looking out everyone….
Howard
Maybe it is me but I can’t see another aircraft in that video. He was departing through the overhead, was transponding and you were arriving through and doing the same. He says he saw you, why do you doubt that? I don’t see any emergency avoidance maybe about 10 degrees of bank and an assertive text message…
Not trying to be difficult but the video doesn’t seem to support the earlier description.
