The closest near miss I've ever had was on final approach
into Wichita [ICT] while giving dual to a student pilot. We
were about number 5 or 6 in the pattern for 19R flying a
Beech Sundowner N18873. These are low-wing with fair
dihedral [for those not familiar]. We were told to extend
downwind by the tower to allow several departures and an
arrival into the pattern. The tower called our base about 4
miles north of the airport. One about a mile final I told
my student that he needed to compensate for the drift as the
wind was changing. I suggested a slip to get aligned and he
dropped the right wing. As is my practice and habit, I
looked in that direction and saw a Cessna 150 about 20 feet
off our wing and just slightly below our altitude. I took
the plane and began a miss and advised the tower. I asked
about the traffic and they told me about the plane I was
following 1/4-1/2 mile ahead I told him about the C150.
Turned out he was to follow us and about 3 miles or so on
downwind his instructor had him turn base. He never saw us
and the tower didn't see the convergence. He turned onto a
collision course and remained under our wing all the way on
base and turning final. I was under radar control and was
probably a little lax, certainly the tower was lax and the
pilots in the C150 had me at 12 O'clock for quite a while
and never saw us. They should have reported to the tower
that they didn't have us and that they were turning base
[w/o clearance].
The pilot had blue eyes and never looked left. The rivets
on a C150 are real big.
--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P
--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.
some support
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm
See
http://www.fija.org/ more about your rights and duties.
"Highflyer" wrote in message
...
|
| "Frode Berg" wrote in message
| news

| OK.
|
| I will not speak my mind on this forum if this is what
happens.
|
| Thanks to all the insightful posts by all you other
people!
|
| I just needed to put some statistics into perspective.
| After all, I witnessed a mid air right before starting
my PPL.
|
| However, tha last week I've flown a few times, and
haven't thought much
| about it anymore.
|
| I guess mr Ol Shy here is flying around his farm in the
middle of nowhere
| at 300 feet in his ultralight.
|
| I only have 250 hours total, and have had 3 close
encounters. Not really
| "near misses" apart from one of them, but they were
still to me
| uncomfortably close, so you claiming 23.000 hours with
none....?
| Hmmm...makes you wonder...
|
| Frode
|
|
| Nope. Old Shy, like I did, started flying about fifty
years ago when you
| learned to fly by looking out the windows. As a result
looking out the
| windows becomes a habit when flying. As a result you can
see the other
| traffic and "near misses" just don't happen very darned
often. I have also
| been flying about fifty some odd years all over the
country includeing some
| years flying charters in the NYC area ( yes, it was busy
there forty years
| ago also ) . In that time I have had two near misses.
Both were high
| performance turboprops climbing up beneath me on my same
course where I had
| a hard time seeing them and they were so busy fiddleing
with radios and
| instruments that neither of them was paying any attention
to where they were
| going until they looked up and saw my belly filling their
windshield.
|
| The other common spot for midairs is short final. You get
a high wing on a
| straight in approach and a low wing in a tight steep
pattern and the low
| wing guy can land on top of the high winger. Be
especially vigilant around
| airports. That is where airplanes often are! :-) Avoid
straight in
| approachs and always roll level for a short spell on base
and look to the
| incoming courseline. Be sure to look high and low because
you never know
| what kind of a glideslope they might be using.
|
| It has worked well for me.
|
| Highflyer
| Highflight Aviation Services
| Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )
|
|
|