On my way back from a quick trip to KPIA, I was about 15 miles northeast of KMSN at 5500' and about a 009 degree heading. There was a lot of traffic around coming/going from OSH. I was listening to KMSN approach but not in contact with them. There was a high wing about 1/2 mile off to my right, 1000' below on about my same heading that I had been slowly overtaking for the past 20 miles. The high wing was in contact with them because I heard approach tell the high wing about me on their left.
I then noticed traffic (The G3X touch/GDL 39 traffic is amazing BTW) ahead that, while not an issue for me, was heading directly for this high wing on a south south east heading at the same altitude. I took some quick pictures of the screen as this progressed.
At the same time I got a visual on the oncoming traffic, approach came on with a traffic alert for the high wing requesting an IMMEDIATE (I could hear the capital letters in his voice) climbing right turn. I watched as the two planes came uncomfortably close to each other.
As I was watching this unfold (mind you it was only 45-60 seconds), I was thinking, is there something I could do to prevent a possible collision? There was a lot of things going through my head. Should I call approach and tell them? What if I call them and while they are ascertaining my location, they are distracted long enough to miss the impending traffic alert?
As you can imagine, Madison approach was extremely busy with Airventure traffic. While I believe ATC controllers are second to none, we are all human and can make mistakes (not that a mistake was made here, everything turned out fine). With the in cockpit information getting so good, are we as pilots obligated to take a more pro-active roll in situations like this?
Luckily this turned out good, but I'm not sure I could live with myself having watched this turn out badly and done nothing to try to stop it. I'm just curious what others would have done?
I then noticed traffic (The G3X touch/GDL 39 traffic is amazing BTW) ahead that, while not an issue for me, was heading directly for this high wing on a south south east heading at the same altitude. I took some quick pictures of the screen as this progressed.
At the same time I got a visual on the oncoming traffic, approach came on with a traffic alert for the high wing requesting an IMMEDIATE (I could hear the capital letters in his voice) climbing right turn. I watched as the two planes came uncomfortably close to each other.
As I was watching this unfold (mind you it was only 45-60 seconds), I was thinking, is there something I could do to prevent a possible collision? There was a lot of things going through my head. Should I call approach and tell them? What if I call them and while they are ascertaining my location, they are distracted long enough to miss the impending traffic alert?
As you can imagine, Madison approach was extremely busy with Airventure traffic. While I believe ATC controllers are second to none, we are all human and can make mistakes (not that a mistake was made here, everything turned out fine). With the in cockpit information getting so good, are we as pilots obligated to take a more pro-active roll in situations like this?
Luckily this turned out good, but I'm not sure I could live with myself having watched this turn out badly and done nothing to try to stop it. I'm just curious what others would have done?
