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 Previous Item - 'Travels with Puff
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'Twas a near thing...... |
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Kenneth Leonard - Jan 24,2007
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My mode C problems remind me why we use transponders and why seperation is important. I was writing on that thread on the tech site that I'd had a near miss which changed my perspective about seperation. Then it occured to me that I'd not had A near miss, but two. No, three! Wow - is that good or bad luck?
My first was flying off a volcano in Hawaii in a C-130. We had just had an extreemly exciting take off as the first and probably last fixed wing plane to use that new 'runway' and had just entered the clouds when the Nav, who was watching the radar for hidden volcanos in the clouds, shouted 'BREAK LEFT!, BREAK LEFT!, BREAK LEFT! We broke left and I distinctly remember watching the CH-47 Chinook fly by on a reciprical heading less than 1/4 mile away on our right. Whew.
A few years later and I was in Alaska on another reserve trip. Had a day off and went with a few others for a helicopter tour. Again, low clouds over a tourist area and out behind a cloud comes another chopper - this time I called (OK, shouted) 'TRAFFIC!' and pointed frantically at the chopper - I was between my pilot and the traffic but he eventually saw it and pulled up hard and we overflew. Never saw thier faces but got a real good look at the rotor! That would have been a hit for sure had we not reacted. I'm not sure our 3 pax in back were even aware how close we were. The pilot tried to play it down but I wasn't happy at all.
The third time was my last cross country as a student pilot. I was flying a trashed 172 that had a single crappy radio. As I overflew my destination airport in the middle of nowhere, I had called several times that I was going to pass over mid field but I wasn't worried about traffic as the radio had been very quiet and the area was deserted. Exactly as I flew over mid field at pattern elevation (800'), with the mike in my hand, a Pitts crossed just in front of my nose going vertical and slowing to a stall. He was absolutely going to stall just as I passed under him and I was exactly behind his pretty red and white checkered helmet so he couldn't see me. I froze. I didn't do a thing but underfly him and waited for the crash. As I lost sight of him, the radio came to life and someone frantically yelled 'BREAK, BREAK - YOU'RE BEING UNDERFLOWN!!!'. I knew it was too late for him to stop his stall but then I heard his engine roar seamingly in my ear and I didn't feel the crash. I just couldn't believe it. I flew a very shaky pattern and touched down (I had to log the touchdown!) without seeing him again. But on roll out, I saw about 5 aerobatic planes lined up next to the runway with thier pilots waiting by them eyeballing me with arms folded. I decided that I really didn't want to explain to these jocks that I was a student pilot and that they owed me an apology so I hit the gas for a touch and go. As I flew away, the radio squawked sarcastically; 'hey cessina, you got a radio in that thing?' I wanted to reply but found that the mike had fallen from my hand at some point and had to drag it off the floor. By the time I got the mike to my mouth to tell them I was the guy who should be complaining, I found I couldn't speak. I never felt my mouth dry up that way before. I was silent all the way back to home airport, landed and waited to be met by the police who never showed. When I went into the rental center, I expected the worst but none knew anything and I wasn't telling just before my checkride! So I gently suggested they might want to check the radio and they said, 'yeah, that radio is crap, it recieves but doesn't transmit about 1/2 the time.' Oh. Thanks for telling me. When I got home and looked at the chart again, I realized I had flown a right pattern and it was a left pattern airport so I should have crossed going the other way... lived and learned.
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Mark Alan MacKinnon - Jan 25,2007
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Wow Ken, that last one should be a 'Never Again' type article....<br /><br />The one close call I remember was back when I worked for the Maine Forest Service, as a radio/avionics tech. They had several contract planes throughout the state that flew fire patrols; there were two Beavers on floats at the Greenville seaplane base that did this at the time (same location as the annual seaplane fly-in). They both used forestry handhelds so the pilots could talk to dispatch on the forestry frequencies. One of the radios had the very strange problem of working ok on the ground but not in the air. So troubleshooting required me to fly while trying to figure out what was wrong with it. (They were junky GE handhelds, which were soon replaced by Bendix/King's, problem solved.....)<br /><br />Anyway I sat in the back with the handheld and some test equipment, with the pilot and a guest passenger upfront in this classic radial-powered beast. At one point, both pilot and front passenger were looking back at me as I was trying something. I glanced up in time to see a Cessna floatplane heading almost straight at us. I yelled and pointed in time; the pilot shoved the nose down as the Cessna passed over us. <br />
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