I took my daughter up today for a little fun flight. We took off VFR from my home airport (non towered) and flew over our house - about 10 miles away. We then called approach and flew an approach to the local class D airport for some fuel and popcorn. We left there VFR to the practice area and did a few stalls and positive/negative G pulls, then headed back towards home.
I let my daughter take the controls and head us “towards that water tower” at 3000 feet. I was concentrating on talking her through the controls and what to look out for. I soon noticed a target on my map at my same altitude headed across my path at the same altitude and at about 3 miles. I couldn’t find the plane, so I took the controls, gave it full power and went into a climbing right turn. I started getting the traffic warnings when I was within one mile of the other craft. I got to about 3500 when I spotted the plane. Sure enough, straight ahead and climbing to my altitude. I was still in a climbing right turn so I just continued. He finally saw me and cut his plane to his right and we stared at each other’s eyeballs as we passed entirely too close to each other.
First of all, the FAR’s say to avoid traffic to the right. Apparently this guy was still turning left. I don’t know if he saw me until right at the end or not. If it hadn’t been for him having adsb out, and for my having adsb in, and paying attention to it, we would have been much closer. It appears he was in a climb, so he SHOULD have had better visibility of me than I did him, but that wouldn’t help if we were both hurdling toward the ground after a mid- air.
I entered the pattern at my home airport still reeling from this event. I landed and rolled out down the runway. Turned off at the end and stopped when I noticed a cub taking off on the parallel grass strip next to the runway I had just landed on. He was passing right over my head as I stopped rolling. There was barely enough room for me to clear the runway before I was in front of the grass strip. I got on the radio and asked if the traffic was hearing my radio calls and he answered “Shore did, I came in right behind you”. He never made a peep. He stayed in the pattern for a few touch and goes and never made the first radio call.
I was glad to be parking it after those two interactions.
Lesson learned, always get flight following even if you are just hoping 10 miles between local airports. I would hope that they would have been able to give me some warning about both of these yahoos.
I let my daughter take the controls and head us “towards that water tower” at 3000 feet. I was concentrating on talking her through the controls and what to look out for. I soon noticed a target on my map at my same altitude headed across my path at the same altitude and at about 3 miles. I couldn’t find the plane, so I took the controls, gave it full power and went into a climbing right turn. I started getting the traffic warnings when I was within one mile of the other craft. I got to about 3500 when I spotted the plane. Sure enough, straight ahead and climbing to my altitude. I was still in a climbing right turn so I just continued. He finally saw me and cut his plane to his right and we stared at each other’s eyeballs as we passed entirely too close to each other.
First of all, the FAR’s say to avoid traffic to the right. Apparently this guy was still turning left. I don’t know if he saw me until right at the end or not. If it hadn’t been for him having adsb out, and for my having adsb in, and paying attention to it, we would have been much closer. It appears he was in a climb, so he SHOULD have had better visibility of me than I did him, but that wouldn’t help if we were both hurdling toward the ground after a mid- air.
I entered the pattern at my home airport still reeling from this event. I landed and rolled out down the runway. Turned off at the end and stopped when I noticed a cub taking off on the parallel grass strip next to the runway I had just landed on. He was passing right over my head as I stopped rolling. There was barely enough room for me to clear the runway before I was in front of the grass strip. I got on the radio and asked if the traffic was hearing my radio calls and he answered “Shore did, I came in right behind you”. He never made a peep. He stayed in the pattern for a few touch and goes and never made the first radio call.
I was glad to be parking it after those two interactions.
Lesson learned, always get flight following even if you are just hoping 10 miles between local airports. I would hope that they would have been able to give me some warning about both of these yahoos.
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