Clearwater FL mid air; one fatality

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message
link.net...

Everyone has their comfort level. If an uncontrolled airport
is that busy, I'm outta there. I don't like it one bit. 3
people in the pattern is no big deal. 4 starts getting tight
since that 5th person might be on approach. 5 forget it. bye
bye. That is my comfort level. If you are at airports with
all trainers, it gets even more hairy since the students
workload is quite high already, they aren't flying very
tight patterns, they are 100 feet too high, 200 feet too high,
all over horizontally, make your reports. If there isn't
room to make one, land and get out or fly away to another
airport.

Well, I'll never forget the call I got from PCT last year,

"cancellation of IFR received, radar services terminated, keep assigned
beacon code until on the ground, 15 plus targets in the vicinity of the
airport, switch to advisory approved, good luck!"

We flew away from the airport, set up the 45 entry and joined the
conflagration, which got interesting when someone made an overhead entry
above the pattern to make the descending right turn to join the 45. I made
as many position reports as possible, but not every one, and I'm not saying
it was ideal, but it all worked.