"Bela P. Havasreti" wrote:

I'm not saying flight following is bad, or you shouldn't use it,
just that you should be able to fly from point A to point B
by looking out the windows and seeing / avoiding any
other airplanes in the sky. Simple as that.

This mid-air could have been avoided had either pilot
done exactly that.

That may be true for the 210 pilot, but not the 170. It appears from the report that
the 210 overtook the 170 from behind on the left side at about a 30 degree angle.
Unless the 170 pilot had rear-view mirrors, he could not have seen the 210 until it
was way too late.

George Patterson
None of us is as dumb as all of us.