Collision alert!

Greg Copeland wrote:
I seriously doubt he was "taking evasive action" until he started he turn
to the right. Unlike me, he had a window view of us. The fact that he
continued to climb into our path, in class B, with a window view, does
not indicate to me he was "evading" anything. The fact that he turned,
head on, after climbing, to me, does not indicate he was "evading."

Hi Greg, it was not my intent to offend you - just playing "what if"
with the information you provided. After your clarification it sounds
like this definitely took place in the class B but that was not clear
(at least to me) from your initial post. As far as what the other guy
was thinking, unfortunately we'll likely never know - but given he was
climbing and turning, it still sounds to me like he did see you. Given
the guy was apparently operating illegally in class B, there's
certainly reason to question his piloting skills, but the fact this
happened on class B has no real bearing on the subsequent events. The
other guy may have been completely unaware he was there (which is a
problem for the FAA to worry about), and VFR traffic advisories are
optional regardless.

Just to play devil's advocate, consider what the other guy might have
been thinking. He sees your plane, knows you have the right of way,
and climbs to 4500. He won't be able to see you any better in the
climb than you can see him, right? Then he turns to the right only to
see you've turned to the left. He waits a little bit to see what
you're going to do next, and after he sees you turn to the right he
also turns right. After the incident is over, maybe he thought his
initial course was underneath the class B shelf, but now that he's
diverted to the north and climbed he's inside it, so he turns
southbound and descends back to 3500.

Did it happen that way? I obviously don't know, but it sounds
possible. It's also possible the other guy was being a complete idiot,
but there's no way to know for sure. I don't think you did anything
wrong, but maybe the other guy didn't do anything wrong either, aside
from violating airspace. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out,
there's no sure-fire method for resolving the conflict even if both
parties are aware of it. And, as I said before, really the important
part is that the conflict did get resolved and everyone's still around
to debate the circumstances.

todd.