BigBadLou
Final Approach
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2014
- Messages
- 5,166
- Location
- TX - the friendliest state
- Display Name
Display name:
Lou
I made the call to go around last weekend due to another aircraft on final as I was turning from base to final at our uncontrolled home 'drome. Don't want to bore you with details.
After we made an extra lap in the pattern and landed safely, I went to talk to the pilot of the other airplane.
The pilot was very nice and to my inquiry whether she heard my announcements or even call for her specific aircraft she replied "no". I know my radio worked because I asked for a radio check on unicom so we checked her radio and found out that she was on the wrong frequency.
She apologized and I could see that she felt bad but I told her not to feel too bad because the good ol' system of "see & avoid" worked as expected. Fun tidbit, she is local and flies out of a neighboring airport (15 miles away).
Lessons learned from this experience:
Now go up there and commit aviation.
After we made an extra lap in the pattern and landed safely, I went to talk to the pilot of the other airplane.
The pilot was very nice and to my inquiry whether she heard my announcements or even call for her specific aircraft she replied "no". I know my radio worked because I asked for a radio check on unicom so we checked her radio and found out that she was on the wrong frequency.
She apologized and I could see that she felt bad but I told her not to feel too bad because the good ol' system of "see & avoid" worked as expected. Fun tidbit, she is local and flies out of a neighboring airport (15 miles away).
Lessons learned from this experience:
- check the frequency you input into your radio - I always read it out loud and have the co-pilot verify (even if I am by myself) when I dial it in the standby window and then verify again after flipping it into the active window (sometimes segments in the 7-segment display might be dead and you would be in for a surprise)
- if you don't hear anybody on the frequency, check your radio - it turns out mine was fine
- keep scanning for other traffic because somebody else might have a radio problem - glad I always look because it saved my bacon for sure
- if another pilot does something wrong, don't assume it was malice, go talk to them and be nice, they might have just made a silly mistake or their fancy $10,000 radio might have just taken a dump and they wouldn't know unless you tell them
- know frequencies of your local airports by heart, it eliminates the need to stare at the chart at low altitudes when you're making a quick local hop (and helps if you have an emergency and need to land in a hurry) - I remember frequencies of all airports in a 25-mile radius (not that I had to make any special effort, I simply remember them from flying there)
Now go up there and commit aviation.