Riddle me this, pilots

"Ben Jackson" wrote in message
news:EQf0b.149627$Oz4.41062@rwcrnsc54...
In article ,
Chip Jones wrote:

In the most professionally bored voice I can muster, I key up and say
"Baron
123, traffic alert, traffic two o'clock, two miles converging from the
right
indicating 7000, suggest you turn right heading 180 immediately."

Why did it get that far?

First of all, I had about fifteen airplanes on frequency. Mentally I was
gearing up for the wad of Atlanta departures that were getting ready to
launch (indeed were beginning to check on freq) and how the weather was
going to impact the departure push. I also had other IFR irons in the fire.
For example, I had two IFR's inbound to JZP and I was blocking for an
approach at 47A (which conflicts with JZP). I was mentally trying to get a
plan working for sequence into JZP while I was making that final
position-relief traffic scan. To me, the VFR target represented a very low
priority traffic call at six miles and 400 feet, especially since I don't
have separation responsibility between IFR and VFR traffic in thsi airspace.
I *do* have an air safety obligation that trumps all of my separation
responsibilities, but at six miles, and even at four miles, I did not
recognize that this situation was going to deteriorate from a routine
traffic situation into an alert situation with co-altitude traffic.

If I'm the Baron I'm thinking, "I can't see
the traffic, I won't see the traffic in IMC, why is this guy waiting
for me to spot this plane?"

I suppose he could have requested a vector at the first or second call. I
was waitng for him to spot the traffic because that's what happens between
VFR and IFR traffic in this airspace. See and avoid.

If you *believed* that he was really in
the soup, why not just pretend the VFR target was a lost-comms IFR
guy and gotten the Baron out of the way?

I didn't believe that the VFR was in the soup until he got co-altitude with
the IFR guy who had reported twice that he was IMC at 7000. I see an
unknown VFR target, I assume the pilot is complying with FAR's. In this
case, I can't prove that he wasn't.


Plus if two aircraft are 2 miles apart and you turn one 90 degrees,
by the time the turn is completed they will have both covered a mile.
My mental image of this is that you're turning a situation where the
two course lines would converge to a sharp point into a situation
where they would converge in a nice rounded corner.


I disagree with you here. I do not use the phraseology "immediately" unless
I am worried about an imminent collision. In 13 years of ATC, I have used
"immediately" probably less than twenty times. In order for the baron to
slip behind the VFR, he did not need to turn 90 degrees, he only needed to
turn 45 to 50 degrees right. I assumed that combining "immediately" with a
suggested 80 degree right turn, there was the highest probability of a
successful outcome for the Baron. In the event, the left turn of 20 or 30
degrees that the Baron pilot executed in the event was insufficient to keep
his target from merging with the intruder.

Chip, ZTL





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