Spotting Traffic

Yesterday, in severe clear VMC (with summer haze keeping the visibility
down to a mere 50 miles or so) on an IFR flight. My wife says "there's
traffic right ahead of us, just a little bit below us!" I said "I don't
see it." She gets more insistent. I still don't see it. She suggests I
ask ATC for a position report on it. I still don't see it, but she's
getting a bit anxious about it. Finally I twig to what she's seeing.
There is a very bright white object on the ground, about 10-20 degrees
below the nose. I had seen it and dismissed it as a ground object minutes
before she pointed it out, so I didn't immediately realize what she was
talking about. I point out that it's not moving relative to the other
objects on the ground, and it is moving relative to the windshield and she
reluctantly conceeds that it's probably on the ground.

One of the reasons I fly IFR and I fly between 8000 and 10000 feet is
because while it doesn't guarantee any separation, it does keep me away
from the $100 hamburger crowd down at 3000 feet, and it bumps me up the
priority queue for getting traffic callouts above the VFR flight following
guys. We flew for 3 hours down to AGC and back this weekend and the only
planes we saw were just before landing back at ROC. But my wife is still
anxious as hell about mid air collisions. If somebody else checks in with
the controller at the same altitude as us, she's almost panicing. I have
to explain that the other guy called in 15 miles north of Bradford
descending to a landing at Bradford, while we're 20 miles south of
Bradford and not descending, so we're unlikely to see him. Any
suggestions how to reassure her?


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Progress (n.): The process through which Usenet has evolved from
smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front
of smart terminals. --