Accident report on the midair at Tenino

"S Green" wrote in message
...
Nothing worse than getting reports that are no help and just increase your
anxiety level.

lying in the South Midlands near Oxford UK, I was about to call up RAF
Brize
Norton for the lowest level service, Flight Information. The controller
was
telling another pilot first to contact somewhere else as he was too busy
(the other pilot said that he was told by the other place to contact BN
because they were too busy) and that he only had secondary radar so and
traffic without a transponder was not on his screen.

As we had no transponder decided that I would not add to the work load but
it was very busy today as we all crammed in under class A airspace with a
base at FL45 dropping to 2500ft within 15 miles.

Mmm yes. Probably the busiest GA day here in the UK so far
this year. You were up too eh? I was formation training over in
Essex (flying from North Weald). The entire light aircraft
population of the South East seemed to be up. As I was flying
over there passing Elstree I heard a plane take off from there
that I used to fly at Cardiff.

So many cool things going on from North Weald. On Saturday I
saw two Gnats, a Hunter and the only flying (out of 11 made) JP1
go off in formation. On Sunday I saw them come back. Talked to
a couple of the pilots. The Aerostars (Yak formation team) were
up and about both days too. Various other JPs were flying around.

Also met the UK dealer for Decathlons and the UK dealer for
PZLs.

Nice weather!

Paul

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 16:56:34 GMT, Bela P. Havasreti
wrote:

I'll try to be nice and say you are welcome to consider getting
flight following services "mandatory" whenever you fly.

My personal opinion, is that primary see & avoid techniques
are not being adequately taught these days, and (perhaps?)
too much emphasis is put on relying on systems (radios,
flight following, etc.).

Bela, there is a columnist who writes a monthly article for AVWeb. He
is a traffic controller for the Atlanta area. His name is Don Brown
and you should read his column number 37. The title is VFR in a
Vacuum, and the blurb goes: "Have you been turned down lately when you
asked ATC for VFR advisories? Expect it to happen more and more often,
especially when you and other pilots don't file a correct flight plan
or use the proper phraseology. AVweb's Don Brown points out how the
impending controller shortage will reduce the additional services ATC
can provide."

So it appears that while requesting flight following is a good idea
for cross country flights, unless a lot of new controllers are brought
on line, it will be increasingly difficult for them to handle non IFR
requests.

Corky Scott

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:42:31 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 16:56:34 GMT, Bela P. Havasreti
wrote:

I'll try to be nice and say you are welcome to consider getting
flight following services "mandatory" whenever you fly.

My personal opinion, is that primary see & avoid techniques
are not being adequately taught these days, and (perhaps?)
too much emphasis is put on relying on systems (radios,
flight following, etc.).

Bela, there is a columnist who writes a monthly article for AVWeb. He
is a traffic controller for the Atlanta area. His name is Don Brown
and you should read his column number 37. The title is VFR in a
Vacuum, and the blurb goes: "Have you been turned down lately when you
asked ATC for VFR advisories? Expect it to happen more and more often,
especially when you and other pilots don't file a correct flight plan
or use the proper phraseology. AVweb's Don Brown points out how the
impending controller shortage will reduce the additional services ATC
can provide."

I think how you ask for flight following makes a world of difference.

I rarely file a flight plan in populated areas unless going IFR. OTOH
I will file if the weather if "Iffy", or I'm going to be flying over
relatively barren or rugged terrain...or the visibility is poor.

But as to flight following. I'm not so sure as the VFR flight plan
(which is a good idea) has as much to do with receiving flight
following as does how you ask for it.

I've found that a simple and relaxed request such as "MBS approach,
this is Debonair Eight Thirty Three Romeo out of Midland Barstow for
Muncie Indiana. I'd like flight following if you have time".

And example which the old timers on here have heard many times
already: A friend and I were both flying from 3BS to MIE. He left
about 20 minutes ahead of me and was flying at 8500 while I was at
6500.

I picked up flight following climbing out of 3BS and never had to
change the transponder until I shut down at MIE. I was handed off
from one approach to the next every time and to center a couple of
times.. My friend had to squawk 1200 and call the next approach
facility when leaving one and entering the next "every time".

So it appears that while requesting flight following is a good idea
for cross country flights, unless a lot of new controllers are brought
on line, it will be increasingly difficult for them to handle non IFR
requests.

Wait till you get a request something like: "If you have the time,
would you be willing to fly a practice PAR for us? We have a new
trainee who'd like to try one".

The difficult part is following the instructions when you can see they
are going to take you right through the localizer, or he's turning you
too soon. You really have to work to not make the appropriate
corrections. :-))

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Corky Scott

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:09:28 GMT, Roger Halstead
wrote:

I've found that a simple and relaxed request such as "MBS approach,
this is Debonair Eight Thirty Three Romeo out of Midland Barstow for
Muncie Indiana. I'd like flight following if you have time".

Well yes, except that I was taught to give more information than that
during the initial call in. Example: "Boston Center, Cessna 123 Alpha
is departing Lebanon direct to Glenn's Fall's, climbing through 3,000
for 6,500 and is now five miles west of Lebanon. I'd like to have
flight following, if you have time." Or wait until I've reached
cruising altitude and call in at that height.

The first time I tried to contact Center during a dual cross country,
the instructor spelled out what he expected me to say and allowed me
to run it through in my mind for a few minutes before I keyed the
mike. Screwed it up anyway, but Center was patient with me.

What I've noticed is that even with practice, it's not easy to fly the
airplane, write down the requested frequency changes as I get
handoff's to be sure I got it right, and respond quickly on the radio
all at the same time. While I'm writing, Center is asking me to
aknowledge the frequency change.

Now that I know what's expected of me, I can of course look up the
frequencies and write them down in sequence during flight planning and
just check it off when the time comes, I suppose.

Corky Scott