How to look like a fool..

[motzartmerv]

I flew to maitland from camden the other day.. When i arrived i was orbiting to loose height on the deadside, as i swung around a partnavia zoomed a few hundred feet off my left wing at same height. with no inbound call, no overflying call, nothing....i knew who it was, it was my instructor with an indian student...Right i thought, you wait till i get back and see you buddy...your in trouble...lol...

 

When i returned, i quizzed my chieff on weather he saw me or not...Nope he said, WELL I SAW YOU i said, but i didnt hear you...dont you give radio calls anymore i said half jokingly...yes, he said, we were on the radio...well i never heard a thing from you i said....Then the question came..What frequency where you on...umm, the maitland ctaf 126.7 i said...hmmm, tats the old one he replies, they changed it in the last ersa...He sternly asked " how old is your ersa is the real question"....

 

hmmm...i looked around for a hole to appear, i looked under the desk, i looked outside, but nay, no holes opened up and swallowed me....

 

point of the story...keep them ersa's up to date Andy...;)

 

 

[Guest mudjeep]

Oops! :;)4:

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Oops! :;)4:

What he said.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Yea..oops alright...but, in my defence, i heard a few other acft on that frequency..

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Just a query, does anyone know why the change of frequency. ? seems everytime they do this there are conflicts and near misses and I never can understand why they keep changing things. when life was a little more practical, when you flew over a country strip the name of the place and local freq was painted on the terminal roof and on a sign near the bowser with the fields elevation so you could set your QNH. don't seem to see this thing now.

 

ozzie

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Airports are Dangerous Places

 

I flew to maitland from camden the other day.. When i arrived i was orbiting to loose height on the deadside, as i swung around a partnavia zoomed a few hundred feet off my left wing at same height.

Hey Merv,

 

what's it with you and the circuit? :)

 

Seriously though why were you orbiting to lose height on the dead side?

 

Airports are proven to be dangerous places, the evidence is very strong. Given that, we should spend the least possible time in close proximity to them - seriously.

 

If you're doing an overhead join that means across the top at 500 feet above the circuit, reversal turn as you lose that 500 feet on the deadside and straight back across at circuit height to then turn downwind.

 

If you spend enough time doing other stuff in proximity to the circuit then someone's going to hit you or vice versa.

 

That fellow might have been a Tiger Moth without radio (unless it's a CTAF®) and therefore he wouldn't need to or be making radio calls. You still have an obligation to see and avoid.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[motzartmerv]

well i wasn't really orbiting, it was just aturn away from the strip to loose height before i crossed to the live side...itwas more like what you said, a reversal turn , its not like i was circelling around close to the strip...It is procedure is it not to descend on the deadside... i approached at +500 and saw the sock and decided which strip was the go and realised i was on the deadside for that cct and had to loose the height fast so i turned away at idle and then crossed at cct height.. sorry to confuse..

 

 

[motzartmerv]

PS.. please correct me if im wrong, but isn't it the acft approaching from behind me resposability to see and avoid me?? he was at my 6-5 oclock, theres no possible way to see there?? Its not like this one was a "close call", just a bit of a surprise to see him there really..

 

cheers

 

 

[Spriteah]

Entering Circuit

 

Thats pretty much the way I have been taught to enter a circuit. And Aircraft overflying should be at least another 500 above approach height.

 

Interesting aboout the ERSA though. Same with Maps. Lots a recent changes to maps in Victoria.

 

Jim.

 

 

[Mazda]

It is everyone's responsibility to see and avoid, and fortunately in this case you did, so it worked! You can look as you overfly, look as you turn, and look behind you as far as you can see. (Otherwise when you become a fighter pilot you might get shot down!)

 

People talk about the added safety of CTAFs having mandatory radio requirements but is isn't true because anyone can make the mistake of being on the wrong frequency, or have the wrong radio selected if they are monitoring two frequencies, or even have a faulty radio and not know it. At some airports there are some non-radio equipped aircraft too, and that certainly used to be the case at Maitland when I flew from there.

 

Also check ERSA (the current one of course ;)) to see if there is an AFRU or UNICOM if you are flying somewhere. I don't think Maitland does unfortunately. But if there is an AFRU listed and you don't hear anything, or a UNICOM operator and you get no reply, check your radio (frequency, volume, selector panel) and try again. Also think about where you are going. Maitland often has traffic, so if you don't hear anything from 10 miles out it might make you wonder why. I think it is now on the Cessnock frequency (from memory) so between the two airports you'd expect to hear some calls. If you don't hear anything, start to wonder why!

 

Please use current documents!! If you haven't had a chance to order from Airservices or Bankstown, some of the Camden schools carry ERSAs so you could buy one before the flight, or even download and print out the pages from the Airservices website. If you can't do that, maybe even tell the school you don't have current documents and they might be able to lend you an ERSA or even photocopy pages for you.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

PS.. please correct me if im wrong, but isn't it the acft approaching from behind me resposability to see and avoid me?? he was at my 6-5 oclock, theres no possible way to see there?? Its not like this one was a "close call", just a bit of a surprise to see him there really..cheers

G'day Merv,

 

sorry for the confusion about orbiting.

 

As for see and avoid. It's the same at sea - the overtaking vessel/aircraft is the give way craft. However I've always adopted the view that "rules of the road" are not much use to me when I'm dead!

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Mazda, thanx for the good advice (as usual)..While im not making excuses for not having the current documents, i heard traffic on the frequency from the minute i selected the freq, thats why i was sure the twin was in the wrong...but alss, it was that others were making the same mistake as me..

 

I realise its evryones responability to see and avoid, my point was that i had no way of seeing that area behind me and i did see him as soon as he was in a line of sight, so i was looking in the right place ..there was no avoidance needed however as we were still quite seperated... but he didn't see me, thats a bit of a concern when he was probably in exess of 110 kts and approaching the cct at my height..whenever i am approaching the cct i always give way to acft in front of me, it just seems to be the smart thing to do, and the rules of the air concure..

 

Pelerous, no need for sorry, i was the one who originally said i was orbitting, for want of a better word..

 

cheers to you both for your input

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Remember that 500 ft above the circuit height puts you at 2,000ft if you consider large aircraft (jets etc) doing circuits at 1,500ft !

 

The more airfields that change away from 126.7 the better. My trip up the east coast last weekend was a shocker on 126.7. It's hard to believe that RPT aircraft have to put up with 126.7 when visting large airfields like Merimbula and Moruya.

 

 

[antzx6r]

Mazda's point on see and avoid is definitly a key point. When it comes down to it your eyes have the last say on decission making. And people do strange things quite often. This morning as I ran through pre-start checks, a C152 "over-flew" YHOX at what looked like 500agl. then started low lev ccts. Cloud cover was around but not that bad... And a student chopper was in the area doing first solo as well. As I fired up the radio I realised he was quite good with radio calls. So not so bad, but I still lined up and climbed to 1000 then made a downwind call "downwind 16 1200 hoxton park". I think he followed after that.

 

On a side point can someone tell me how to quote a section of a script(not the whole thing). :;)3:

 

 

[Spriteah]

jets and larger aircraft

 

Brentc thats an interesting comment.

 

As a new pilot of RAA qualification and 20hrs GA (some 20 years ago and 8 recently) I'm not fully versed on the 1500ft normal circuit heights for larger/faster aircraft.

 

Can someone clarify that for me. As I will enter unfamiliar airports at 1500 agl with calls. Observe the sock and layout. Make selection. Call and decend at a suitable location then enter the circuit at 1000agl.

 

Is that not correct?

 

Jim.

 

 

[Mazda]

MozartMerv, that's true, if you heard other calls you would have thought you were on the correct frequency. That sure is a trap.

 

Jim if you can ascertain circuit direction in advance (from other traffic, UNICOM, AWIS etc) you can descend to circuit height and join downwind or midfield crosswind. If you don't know the direction, overfly and look at the sock.

 

Yes, you need to keep a good lookout everywhere! Above, below, in front, behind, left, right. Really turn your head around and look. Be aware of your blind spots (maybe lift the wing in a high wing). There may be faster aircraft overhead, or departing aircraft, or maybe aircraft doing instrument approaches.

 

There may be faster aircraft in a higher circuit. Often the airline aircraft will call well in advance though to set up a straight in approach. Technically they have to give way to circuit traffic, but it doesn't take much effort to adjust your circuit so they don't have to go around, and that gets them down safely without having to mix it with you too much in the circuit!

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Recently i arrived at moree, when i was about 8 miles out a quantas dash8 called up and said he was descending for an arrival at moree.. he set up for an approach on 19 .. but when he was close to the strip an airtractor called rolling on 01, by this time i was a mile or so away and had never been there before so i wanted to overfly.. The dash8 called a change of plan and that they were going to join downwind for 01 thinking that the tractor was taking off into wind...but he was rolling with about a 15 kt tailwind..i saw the tractor and finally got a visual on the dash8... i called him up and told him i was going to reverse out of there untill he was on late downwind and i would sneak in behind him...

 

but then the capt saw the windsock and changed his mind again and had to go around to join downwind for 19...he was exellent on the radio as you'd expect and stayedin contact with me and the tractor the whole time and gave advice on seperation....just to make it interesting the tractor only did a cct at low level...the call went something like this..

 

"tractor xxx downwind for 01 low level moree"

 

"Moree traffic dash8 xxx late downwind for 19"

 

"oh, ok qantas xxx i'll expedite my landing and get out of your way"

 

"airtractor xxx, thanx mate that'd be great"... and with that the tractor turned a very short base leg and then final at about 100 ft and touched down fter about 5 seconds after finishing the turn onto final...and rolle clear of the runway..

 

The qantas capt came on the radio and said

 

"gee, i wish we could do that" hehehe...and after all that i finally landed the little jab on runway 19 after waiting outside the area for it all to play out...was pretty cool seeing the and hearing the skill level of both pilots...

 

Now, moree is a ctaf, so id like to see how that situation would have played out if i didn't have a radio...or anyone else who may have arrived at te same time for that matter deaf and dumb...

 

cheers

 

 

[Mathew Ker]

Mozartmerv, You were lucky to get radio traffic out of the air tractor pilot. In my limited experience, we have a couple of fixed wing crop-dusters and a couple of rotarty wings, and the first we know of them is when they're moving. The seem to taxi straight from their loading point to the runway, over grass to save time. They'll take off down-wind, up-wind, any wind so it often involves some guess work. Landing is a similar setup - just get it on the ground, radio calls are for wimps!

 

We had one exciting moment when my instructor pulled power in the circuit for a simulated engine failure. I setup on the cross-wind runway, had time to make appropriate radio calls, to which we were greeted with one of the air-tractor operators telling us he was already rolling. We had about 10 seconds separation, but it was a great lesson in the importance of correct radio procedure and airfield operations.

 

It's disappointing when 'professional' operators provide such a poor example.

 

Cheers, Mathew

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Deffinatly..but guys at moree seem to be pretty good with the radio atleast...they were a good bunch of guys, i asked them for a lift to town, a guy said wait here a sec...came bak with hi car keys and said take the old carolla out there mate...i told him i was gunna overnite, he said no worries...just park her up where ya get it from when ya finished...

 

good bloke i thought..

 

cheers

 

 

[Ben Longden]

Sort of makes you wonder why all CTAF's arent a CTAF®...

 

Aviate, navigate and COMMUNICATE.

 

Ben