Howard wrote:
So, what happens if I report this to the Airprox Board?
By now you have “reported” it in public here, so why not make a real report?
In Norway, reporting is mandatory, I thought it was in all of EASA land? They do indeed investigate, I know from experience, they called me back for an interview (after a dead stick landing).
I dont beleive it is mandatory in the UK for a private pilot, it is mandatory in certain other circumstances.
If you file, just be ready for the Airprox board to make up their completely own story about what happened and what went through your head. I don’t think it has been discussed on here, but this discussion on an airprox report give you a sense of what I mean: Flyer discussion
Now, that is the Flyer Forum gang of Monday Morning Quarterbacks, but I find the Airprox report criticism on the pilots completely unreasonable. I think their focus is too tilted towards placing blame, rather than taking learnings away.
…so I would not file a report. It was probably just a lesson in keeping a good lookout and to never assume. It is also a possibility that you overheard his call and he had you clearly in sight the whole time (as he claimed).
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I dont beleive it is mandatory in the UK for a private pilot, it is mandatory in certain other circumstances.
It very much is. See the Occurrence reporting regulation.
It’s not about the conclusion of the Airprox Board, about which you may draw your own conclusions. It’s to provide evidence to help others manage risk.
One you write here (on any place of the internet), and if mandarory, you probably should just report. Otherwise you could get into trouble because it can be clearly shown you looked about it, saw mandarory, and decided to ignore
Howard wrote:
So, what happens if I report this to the Airprox Board? They’ll investigate. Speak to the other pilot if they can trace him (probably can) but then they do nothing. So what is the point? Anyone have a view?
Definitely report this. It is definitely an AirProx and should be flagged, if not only for Statistical purpose. These statistics do get seen and used… just don’t expect any decisions tomorrow.
bookworm wrote:
It’s not about the conclusion of the Airprox Board, about which you may draw your own conclusions. It’s to provide evidence to help others manage risk.
But in practise, does it?
The limitations of see-and-avoid, and the problems of bad airmanship (e.g. just flying through someone’s ATZ without a care in the world) have been known for decades. Having some civil servant pontificate on this isn’t going to result in any meaningful safety benefit. The United States, to give an example, doesn’t have an airprox board reporting on private GA matters or half the other layers of pontificating civil servants and mandatory occurrence reports, yet the GA safety record in the US is slightly better than it is for the UK or Europe.
Is there really anything to be learned from the OP’s experience by others that hasn’t been discussed for decades at this point?
Well, yes: don’t do overhead joins! 
alioth wrote:
Is there really anything to be learned from the OP’s experience by others that hasn’t been discussed for decades at this point?
We cannot know. An airprox board would have the means to investigate the essential questions, like where did the traffic come from, where did it go, and why was it at this altitude where it crossed with Howard. Since we don’t have details about which airfield etc., we couldn’t really analyse this.
At my airfield for example, a recommended VFR itinerary was published a few years ago as a result of some traffic going through the ATZ without being on the frequency. Which wasn’t even too surprising given all the airspace, danger and prohibited areas which we have around there, but still a risk. This new recommended itinerary, which is also drawn on the 1:500.000 IGN chart, keeps passing traffic well clear (putting it right into the way of the RNAV 01 approach into Colmar, but that is another story).
Rwy20 wrote:
At my airfield for example, a recommended VFR itinerary was published a few years ago as a result of some traffic going through the ATZ without being on the frequency. Which wasn’t even too surprising given all the airspace, danger and prohibited areas which we have around there, but still a risk. This new recommended itinerary, which is also drawn on the 1:500.000 IGN chart, keeps passing traffic well clear (putting it right into the way of the RNAV 01 approach into Colmar, but that is another story).
Sounds like a safety loss to me. You move VFR traffic out of the way of other VFR traffic and into the way of IFR traffic
…but my question is rather if it actually changed pilots behaviour? Have you had fewer airproxs since?
