Midair near Minden

16 seconds is a long time to make an avoidance manuver.


raulb wrote:
I am sure that Chip Gardner is thinking that it is deja vu all over
again. He had a Navy jet (A-4? A-6?) eat 3 feet of his wingtip near
Mt. Palomar about 20 years ago.

Gardner managed to fy back and land at the gliderport at Hemet and the
jet limped back to Miramar NAS with a fiberglass wingtip lodged in one
of his engines.

I remember at the time that Chip said that at the speeds they fly, we
go from being a speck on the windshield to a full target in less than
16 seconds.

jodom wrote:
16 seconds is a long time to make an avoidance manuver.


Effective clearing is a lot harder than it looks.

You might even be able to do a complete loop in 16 seconds in your
aircraft, but that doesn't mean you can find the traffic in 16 sec.,
especially if there is more than one target to deal with, let alone
avoid it safely.

Sixteen seconds is not a long time to scan the inner surface of a globe
whose diameter is measured in miles and from which threats are emerging
at closing speeds of from 200 to 500 kts below 10,000' msl. Above that
level you can raise potential closing speeds to nearly 600 kts, and
still be below Class A.

By the way, with a closing speed of only 300 kts, you have just 12
seconds to close from a mile out. The inner surface of a two-mile
diameter globe cannot be fully scanned in less than 12 seconds, leaving
you less than zero time to react and to maneuver to avoid.

Think of how many aircraft you have seen and subsequently you took some
evasive action (e.g., ten)-- now think of how many of those took no
action to evade you (e.g., seven), presumably because they did not see
you. In this example 70% of the other pilots were unaware of potential
midair collisions. How does that apply to you? Could we assume that you
were also unaware of 70% of potential traffic conflicts? No, because you
are, of course, twice as effective as the average pilot. Therefore you
only missed slightly more than one third of those potentially fatal
conflicts.

To what do we attribute your continued survival? The big-sky concept
works, but not forever. Is today's flight your last? Could be, unless
all of us get serious about the BIG PICTURE of traffic awareness and
avoidance.


Jack

"jodom" wrote in message
oups.com...
16 seconds is a long time to make an avoidance manuver.

Err... How, exactly? -- Yuliy