On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 10:11:36 +0000, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 11/01/14 23:38, son_of_flubber wrote:
Since I have no experience with winching, the concept of an errant
airplane running into a winch cable is new to me and therefore
interesting. It's not something that is often mentioned.

You have experience with winching and therefore see the event from a
completely different perspective. Your matter-of-fact comment that
errant airplanes commonly enter winch zones was also interesting to me.

Have a look at "Airprox Report No 052/07" on p171 of
http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/docs/423/ukabbk18.pdf which includes
"Several times each year pilots of ac inbound to Kemble appear to
misidentify Aston Down for Kemble and enter a circuit or even line up
on one of the two RWs, ignoring the different RW direction; the wind;
the winch; the gliders - both in circuit and on the airfields and a
double-deck control bus parked at the launch point on the runway. It
is often the case that these same pilots are in communication with
Kemble throughout and only realise they are mistaken when Kemble
reports no sight of them on approach."

We have had the same problem at GRL, but with GA traffic for Little
Gransden (3km, 1.6 nm away). Never mind that we have three runways that
form a large triangle while Little Gransden is a single 500m runway. You
really wonder what, if anything, goes on in these guy's heads, especially
the one who made three attempts to land at GRL while we were launching
the grid during a Regionals. And then he got abusive when told he
wouldn't be allowed to leave until we'd finished launching.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |