Shaken, not stirred.....

dublinpilot wrote:

1. You’re assuming he was on the same frequency. Perhaps he was on an Information frequency, and they told him that there was traffic in the area and advised to switch frequency, and as a result never heard your initial calls. I admit not a good practice, but might not be how you’re assuming it. Indeed he might simply have the radio turned off, and turned it on only when he got closer to the airport.

2. I’m not clear on the scale of the map, but it looks like you might be 2-3 miles back from the runway. You also say that you turned final at 1000ft, which also suggests that it’s a long final. Perhaps he heard you and assumed that by “final”, you were far closer to the runway than you actually where. Again not good practice, but assumptions aren’t a good idea.
3. You also assume that there was an instructor onboard without any real evidence for this. It could have been a solo student, or a qualified pilot practicing something that they’d been taught.
4. You don’t know if they pilot had visual contact with you already, and was already separating themselves from you. What came as a shock to you, might have seemed perfectly safe to them (yes, I admit this is a bit of a stretch!).
5. Your plot of the other aircrafts path seems to be an assumption at least up to the point where you saw them.
Colm

1. I doubt very much that he was on an info frequency because he was, when I first received his transponder signal (this motor glider has a Mode S -ES transponder on board) my Zaon showed him to be 700 feet below me, means 500 feet MSL. As the altitude in Hamm is 190 feet, he was just over 300 feet AGL, are you telling me a radar frequency will see him that low, when they have returns from power stations 2 miles away which are 900’ AGL? Or towers in the city that are 300 feet AGL?

Thinking about this, he must have been interrogated by radar somewhere for his transponder to have been picked up by my MRX….. but even so, I doubt any controller at Langen would see someone flying into the approach path of an airfield, low level, and not say something. Heck, I remember on my solo cross country flying above the Bockel CTR and the controller advising me to turn 10 degrees to the right because although I wasn’t infringing their CTR, I was flying along their extended centre line and he couldn’t be sure when their Typhoons would be launched. That lesson stayed with me, I will not fly along the extended centre line of an airfield…..

2. Using Google Earth I can tell you precisely that my final is 1.40 NM exactly to the threshold – I can tell you that because we have oil silos in Hamm which are extremely prominent and I always turn around them. If you use them as your marker, turn around them in 1000 feet MSL (810 Feet AGL) you will come out of the turn lined up perfectly to land on runway 06.

3: The statement was made: ‘in our club, we have to train for low flying’. I didn’t state categorically there was an instructor on board, just that this statement was made to justify the pilot’s actions.

4: If he had me in sight, why was he crossing in front and climbing up to meet me? My diagram shows the conflicting traffic slightly advanced on it’s position, I first spotted it whilst glancing down, 45° to my left. So working on my direction of travel, you can see that he wasn’t as far forward as where I had indicated him. But let’s say he had seen me – his action for increasing separation to me was to climb and cross my track? REALLY? In the end, I’m pretty sure he was oblivious to me.

5: His statement to me was that he had been flying along the River Lippe hence no need to respect minimum flight height rules. Where I saw him first was at the point I marked myself so the track afterwards is pretty accurate as I then kept him visual until after I had landed, but yes, before hand is a guess but a pretty reasonable one based on his statement.

Aviathor wrote:

All of this is interesting, but I am wondering whether there isn’t also another learning point here.

IIUC, @Steve6443, you continued you approach (and descent) despite the fact that the other guy was closing in vertically and laterally? Couldn’t you have increased your separation by aborting your descent and turned away?

The challenge with a TIS (Traffic Information System) is that the bearing is not very precise. The altitude however, should be correct, so the best you can do is increase the vertical separation, in Steve6443’s case, by climbing. TIS is a great tool, but only if you act on the information it gives you, and I think it takes a little mental preparation to react correctly.

I have written about that before; I once was cleared to descend on top of another aircraft during an IAP to and airport in N France. Fortunately I had a TIS and declined.

Believe me, I sat here last night wondering what I should have done. I was configured for approach – 73 knots. He was overtaking me on my left, climbing to meet me. If I turned, I would definitely lose sight of him because of my aircraft having low wings and that is something I didn’t want to do. I considered full throttle and rejecting the approach, but in that first split second, I didn’t know what his climb rate was nor his closing speed so I rejected that. All I knew was I need to create some space and keep this guy in sight which I achieved by closing the throttle.

Concerning TIS, I’ve often had warnings from aircraft on the field where the transponder is switched on so if I’m approaching a field to land and I see such warnings on my unit, I tend to ask if that is the case. Sometimes the attitude encoder is duff….

what_next wrote:

If he continues like this he will sooner or later trigger a TCAS event of a commercially operated airplane (there are quite a few airports in that region) and then there will be an official investigation. He better gets his theory refresher soon.

You’ll be interested to note that his base is directly within the Dortmund CTR…… so if his flying is so poor, it will be sooner rather than later….

what_next wrote:

My guess of what they were about to do is a practice forced landing using that airfield as their target. This would explain their flight path and the low altitude they were flying at, and also that mention of a “training detail”. Which is no problem at all if you announce your intention.

I’ve done practice forced landings at Hamm, right the way down to a full stop but it’s always announced first of all, started at 2000 feet AGL and even so, you still make your calls – downwind, base, final – this guy never made contact until he was hailed but then he responded straight away so the chances that he joined the frequency at that moment? Doubtful.

I think this guy was taking a low level bimble along the Lippe, enjoying the views and leaving his brain switched off. I’ll even give you further information to support this:

1) His base is under the Dortmund CTR. Dortmund was starting on Runway 24 yesterday morning (just checked on Flight Radar) but the wind in Hamm was very light from the north so 06 was in use.

2) He suffered from expectant perception – ‘I took off flying from east to west, I expect this airport has the same pattern direction’

3) even when I called 06, it still didn’t dawn on him that I was flying the opposite direction approach just as he was bimbling through it.

4) when I called ‘that was f***ing close’, I’m pretty sure that he still hadn’t even seen me because he then continued his course, levelling off around (I would guess) 600 feet AGL, without a care in the world. No doubt he thought I was referring to something else, that he was flying correctly…..

It’s an explanation that makes sense to me, makes more sense than him claiming he was ‘within his rights to fly so low’ – after all, I do know plenty of pilots who are extremely reluctant to admit they are at fault, especially such a basic fault as mixing up circuit directions, irrespective of anything else…..