Guest Darren Masters Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Well, went up, dusted the cobwebs and bird poo off my plane day before yesterday, had it's annual done then went for a fly. Now, when I come back into the circuit I join overhead, always like to make the appropriate radio calls then I like to do a couple of orbits and look down below at the scenery/car/hangars/people etc etc. I did this, all as normal. I then complete a normal circuit turning onto downwind, final then land. I thought the sun was a bit strong for my little bird so I wheel her into the hangar probably two minutes after landing. I then hear a jet sound. Weird for the airfield that I am at. Walk out the hangar, look up into the sky and at 500 ft there is a USAF C17 flying right above the field (where I just was) heading North. No radio calls, no anything. Hey, he's USAF so he does not need to make calls :rolleyes: I could read USAF underneath and the rego on the side. Who the hell would think that when they are in their local circuit an aircraft such as this would fly over with no calls/no anything? How do I know he would have seen me? How do I know the crew were not stuffing around with their GPS wondering where they were? I don't have a transponder so I would not have showed up on TCAS. My point is, keep a look-out when you are flying...ALWAYS. You just never know what is coming/who may be sharing the circuit with you. Lots of pilots are unfamiliar with circuit directions/radio calls/frequencies when they are flying in/around airfields other than home. Anyway, here is a pic of him flying away. I was late to get out my i-Phone with the shock of it all but you can see him and how low he was. Don't even need to think what he would have done to me had we collided...
Sukhoi SU-37 Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Wow lucky you got the camera out just in time lol... You definitely have to keep a vigilant look out for other aircraft..
Spin Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Geez mate, that would be a real heart in mouth experience. Strange though, you'd expect a big bird like that to be on a flight plan and I cant's see atc steering him over an airfield down in the weeds. Glad it all ended well.
Guest Darren Masters Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Wow lucky you got the camera out just in time lol... You definitely have to keep a vigilant look out for other aircraft.. Telling me.
Guest Darren Masters Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Geez mate, that would be a real heart in mouth experience. Strange though, you'd expect a big bird like that to be on a flight plan and I cant's see atc steering him over an airfield down in the weeds. Glad it all ended well. It was. Literally. I felt sick when I saw it go over. Now, don't get me wrong, I love these things but to think I was in the same spot a few min before...I thought the same, had to be on a flight plan, must have known the airfield was there etc etc. I'll never know I guess.
Guest aviatrix27 Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 reminds me of an incident 2 years ago. We were staying at a friend's hangar-house and 2 F111's flew over about 50' AGL. If we had been out doing night circuits, we wouldn't have looked at NOTAMS, even if we did it wouldn't have helped, they were supposed to be at least 20 miles further east!
Guest Darren Masters Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 reminds me of an incident 2 years ago. We were staying at a friend's hangar-house and 2 F111's flew over about 50' AGL. If we had been out doing night circuits, we wouldn't have looked at NOTAMS, even if we did it wouldn't have helped, they were supposed to be at least 20 miles further east! There you go. I'm sure there are many 'similar' stories. Sobering isn't it? I still think the military have the attitude of they can do what they want...
Guest avi8tr Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 I once landed in my paddock and as doing so heard some broken radio message from the RAAF tower, but didn't care what it was at the time. 5 minutes later a RAAF 707 flew overhead me at 500ft. The radio call that I had just missed was the control tower re-activating the military airspace.
Guest Darren Masters Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 I once landed in my paddock and as doing so heard some broken radio message from the RAAF tower, but didn't care what it was at the time. 5 minutes later a RAAF 707 flew overhead me at 500ft. The radio call that I had just missed was the control tower re-activating the military airspace.Not long after that in an unrelated incident the 707 crashed into the ocean.... Damn scary!
metalman Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Used to get F111's tearing up the east coast of Fraser island at low level pretty regularly, also used to get a lot of bugsmashers bottleling along at 500agl ( me included) always hoped their radar was well ahead of the pointy bit
winsor68 Posted March 31, 2012 Posted March 31, 2012 Happens a lot and not just with military aircraft it seems... And the GA guys around here call us Cowboys!!!
siznaudin Posted April 2, 2012 Posted April 2, 2012 It's an age-old problem evidently... we stumbled across this when travelling from Cobram to Temora. Google Brocklesby and Anson for more: it's an amazing story. [ATTACH]1088[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]1089[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]1090[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]18156[/ATTACH]
Guest DWB Posted April 2, 2012 Posted April 2, 2012 Haven't read the story yet. I was fascinated that the 3 who parachuted were surnames of prominent leaders of Federal Liberal/National Party politics, John Hewson, Ian Sinclair. All it needed was for Hugh Fraser to have been a Malcolm & there would have been a trifecta. Trivia.........
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