Familiar story, turns base after straight in calls 3 mile final.

The biggest problem here is that at least three pilots (our two heros and assuming the Cirrus guy was alone) all decided that they would be number one for the airport no matter what when they were 7 miles from the airport. With only two planes in the area, this should have easily been coordinated with a little communication. Unfortunately, the only evidence of of communication between the two aircraft was in the form of snarky comments indicating that everyone thought that the other was in the wrong. That’s not how this is supposed to work. We can do better.
 
Dave Theisen said:
Unfortunately, the only evidence of of communication between the two aircraft was in the form of snarky comments indicating that everyone thought that the other was in the wrong. That’s not how this is supposed to work. We can do better.
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Yep, being the influencer he is, this was quite a teachable opportunity for Miller. Instead he chose to posture. Sad.
 
Dave Theisen said:
The biggest problem here is that at least three pilots (our two heros and assuming the Cirrus guy was alone) all decided that they would be number one for the airport no matter what when they were 7 miles from the airport. With only two planes in the area, this should have easily been coordinated with a little communication. Unfortunately, the only evidence of of communication between the two aircraft was in the form of snarky comments indicating that everyone thought that the other was in the wrong. That’s not how this is supposed to work. We can do better.
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Amen to that, too. Arguments about right-of-way should be conducted on the ground, not in the air!
 
PaulS said:
Watched this video, Centurian enters the pattern with a Cirrus calling straight in. Give it a watch if you're interested, was eerily similar to the twin 152 recent accident. If you turn base after someone calls a 3 mile final, you are the problem regardless of who is right or wrong previously.
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I agree with you, but I also encourage you all to take a hand held and watch your field's landing pattern and you'll find that most pilots say "turning base" well after they already made the turn ... we have a ton of student at our field and they ALL make that call "turning base" after they have turned ...I see it as I'm at the hold short line watching as well ...
 
Flying Keys said:
...This occurred about 2 1/2 weeks prior to the Watsonville midair - I have a feeling the 210 would have yielded if WVI had occurred prior and it had been fresh on their minds.
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it shouldn't take an incident like the watsonville midair for a seasoned, world-renowned CFI and a, uh, a guy who owns a plane and a gopro to turn a situation like this into a total non-event. which is what it should have been. "hey, why don't you go first?"...."no no, please, you go first" is what it sooooooo easily should have been, and almost always is when I fly.

the bigger issue with this event was it showed the true attitudes of these 2 guys. the similar situations I've been in, I had one attitude off the PTT and another attitude with my actions. sure there's been plenty of times I thought other pilots were being d!cks, but I didn't respond, other than verbally to myself, in a "I'm gonna show him" kind of way. "yield to conflict" is my standard. "FU" was these guys standard.
 
eman1200 said:
the bigger issue with this event was it showed the true attitudes of these 2 guys. the similar situations I've been in, I had one attitude off the PTT and another attitude with my actions. sure there's been plenty of times I thought other pilots were being d!cks, but I didn't respond, other than verbally to myself, in a "I'm gonna show him" kind of way. "yield to conflict" is my standard. "FU" was these guys standard.
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No question that there was an attitude issue in the C210. The bigger pitfall is that they THOUGHT they had the ROW when they didn't, and unfortunately a lot of other pilots seem to have that same misconception.

At least at the very end he admits that turning base in front of an aircraft on final "may have" increased the risks. May have? I'd say whenever you put your back to a fast airplane close to you on final you HAVE increased the risks. I once watched an airplane nearly land on top of a Cub while I was waiting to take off. I should have said something sooner but I did alert the Cessna that he was about to land right on top of the Cub that cut in front of him, and he went around, thankfully, but it was a close call.
 
PIC said he was tired and would not have made the flight if solo. I think this may have influenced his actions.
 
dbahn said:
The regulation does exactly the opposite, and gives the aircraft on final the "right-of-way over other aircraft in flight or operating on the surface". I don't know where this "dibs" concept comes from, but it's a deadly misconception.
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I never said anything about dibs....don't know what you're getting at.
so I'm tooling along on downwind. Someone in a cherokee calls a 15 mile straight in final. Do I extend downwind becasue the guy on final has right of way? of course not!
Just like tower will often have three or more aircraft all "cleared to land" on the same runway.
 
"Dibs" is when someone is already in the pattern and claims some kind of special privileges, like cutting in front of someone on final, usually "calling" on the radio to announce it. It's downright scary to me in the various discussions about the Watsonville crash how many pilots feel justified in cutting in front of someone on final even if it creates a risk, just like these guys in the C210.

You can land in front of anyone on final as long as you remain clear and don't create a collision hazard, which I believe the FAA considers to have occurred if an aircraft with the ROW has to take evasive action while converging with another aircraft.

Froom 91.113:
General. When weather conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft. When a rule of this section gives another aircraft the right-of-way, the pilot shall give way to that aircraft and may not pass over, under, or ahead of it unless well clear.
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"When a rule of this section gives another aircraft the right-of-way, the pilot shall give way to that aircraft and may not pass over, under, or ahead of it unless well clear."

That's a point that is so often overlooked right there: The "unless well clear" tells you that you MAY pass ahead of the other aircraft if you ARE well clear.
 
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Glad there is discussion around this, which was the intention of publishing the situation. Some assumptions and misinformation floating around- I should have made more clear in the video. There was at least 2 miles between us and the Cirrus. He couldn’t have hit us if he tried unless he would rather keep up his speed to hit us instead of make a landing. I do find straight ins annoying and increasing risk of conflict when there are other planes in the pattern, especially at airports where there is a lot of training going on. I have flown many straight ins to non towered airports when no other planes are present.
 
FlyingMonkey said:
He couldn’t have hit us if he tried unless he would rather keep up his speed to hit us instead of make a landing.
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the irony, and what you seem to be missing, is that’s exactly why the people in the other accident are dead. The exact same thing was true in that situation. You handed your safety over to another pilot and let him decide if you lived or not.

if the twin had not kept barreling in, no flaps, and gear up, at 180 knots, that accident would not have occurred either.
 
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Salty said:
the irony, and what you seem to be missing, is that’s exactly why the people in the other accident are dead. The exact same thing was true in that situation. You handed your safety over to another pilot and let him decide if you lived or not.

if the twin had not kept barreling in at 180 knots, that accident would not have occurred either.
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I don’t think the math works out for him to hit us even keeping his speed up. He’s 2 miles behind us and we are almost over the threshold. I think him erroneously calling “short final” and complaining makes it seem way closer than it was. Extending downwind is also a good idea and something I have done many times. I’ve even extended downwind to accommodate a plane on a practice approach landing at the opposite (downwind) runway because I guess he really wanted to practice that type of approach. (Covered that in another video)
 
I think there’s an element of expectation and experience missing in the discussion. Someone who has a lot of experience in busy airspace will find 2 miles of space between two light aircraft with similar approach speeds to be quite normal. Another may not. There are a lot of factors to take into account, part of why it’s not easy to just walk in and get a certificate.

That said, I never take a self-announced position call for granted. You never know if that’s derived from DME distance, distance to the threshold, distance to the center of the airport, or estimated using the Mk I. In my experience, someone calling a 2 mile final may be anywhere from 1 to 4 out, so I’ll just extend and get eyes on. Extend too far (say the guy was actually 4 miles out) and now you’re potentially causing problems for others. Consider that a 3 mile final for 34 at KMCC is basically in a tri-point between KMCC, KSAC, and KMHR (and very near the class deltas of the latter two). That is the definition of congested airspace.
 
FlyingMonkey said:
...There was at least 2 miles between us and the Cirrus...
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There were probably about two miles between the 152 and the 340 at Watsonville when the former started the base turn.
 
Flying Keys said:
I think there’s an element of expectation and experience missing in the discussion. Someone who has a lot of experience in busy airspace will find 2 miles of space between two light aircraft with similar approach speeds to be quite normal. Another may not. There are a lot of factors to take into account, part of why it’s not easy to just walk in and get a certificate.

That said, I never take a self-announced position call for granted. You never know if that’s derived from DME distance, distance to the threshold, distance to the center of the airport, or estimated using the Mk I. In my experience, someone calling a 2 mile final may be anywhere from 1 to 4 out, so I’ll just extend and get eyes on. Extend too far (say the guy was actually 4 miles out) and now you’re potentially causing problems for others. Consider that a 3 mile final for 34 at KMCC is basically in a tri-point between KMCC, KSAC, and KMHR (and very near the class deltas of the latter two). That is the definition of congested airspace.
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I agree to not take the position announcement call for granted. In this case cirrus pilot said he was on short final while 2 miles out, which we saw both on the ADSB on Foreflight and better yet, visually.
 
Palmpilot said:
There were probably about two miles between the 152 and the 340 at Watsonville when the former started the base turn.
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Yep. And that 152 had a much longer final in distance, was much slower with a much larger difference in speeds due to significantly disparate aircraft types.
 
FlyingMonkey said:
Yep. And that 152 had a much longer final in distance, was much slower with a much larger difference in speeds due to significantly disparate aircraft types.
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The ground track depicted in one of the threads showed the 152 making what amounted to a short approach.

You're right about the greater difference in aircraft types, but if a pilot on final felt it necessary to alter his approach speed due to my turning in front of him, I would not feel confident that the FAA would not consider that to be a violation of his right-of-way. As always, "your mileage may vary."
 
Palmpilot said:
The ground track depicted in one of the threads showed the 152 making what amounted to a short approach.

You're right about the greater difference in aircraft types, but if a pilot on final felt it necessary to alter his approach speed due to my turning in front of him, I would not feel confident that the FAA would not consider that to be a violation of his right-of-way. As always, "your mileage may vary."
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I’d agree if the aircraft was configured for and something close to normal landing speed. Turning final when the concorde is 100 miles away doing Mach 2.3 is not “cutting him off”.
 
Salty said:
I’d agree if the aircraft was configured for and something close to normal landing speed.
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Do we know that the Cirrus was not doing as you describe?

Turning final when the concorde is 100 miles away doing Mach 2.3 is not “cutting him off”.
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I agree, because of the "unless well clear" exception stated in 91.113. (See posts #92 and 93 for details.)
 
Palmpilot said:
The ground track depicted in one of the threads showed the 152 making what amounted to a short approach.

You're right about the greater difference in aircraft types, but if a pilot on final felt it necessary to alter his approach speed due to my turning in front of him, I would not feel confident that the FAA would not consider that to be a violation of his right-of-way. As always, "your mileage may vary."
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The pilot needed to alter his speed because he’s not going to land at 140 Knots. He needs to slow down to land anyway. Airplanes of similar speeds both on final separated by 2 miles is not really a problem.
 
FlyingMonkey said:
I agree to not take the position announcement call for granted. In this case cirrus pilot said he was on short final while 2 miles out, which we saw both on the ADSB on Foreflight and better yet, visually.
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That’s one of the keys. I take that “visually” includes some indication of closure rate, in which the “well clear” rule applies.
 
FlyingMonkey said:
The pilot needed to alter his speed because he’s not going to land at 140 Knots. He needs to slow down to land anyway. Airplanes of similar speeds both on final separated by 2 miles is not really a problem.
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I'll grant you this much: Regardless of right-of-way considerations, for him to say he was going to do a straight-in "traffic permitting" and then complain when accommodating traffic became necessary seemed uncalled-for.

When I do a straight-in in VFR conditions, I'm ready to break off and enter the pattern without complaining about it.
 
FlyingMonkey said:
......Extending downwind is also a good idea and something I have done many times. .......
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Except that it's kinda not a good idea.... extending out where you can't make the runway for no good reason

Flying Keys said:
I think there’s an element of expectation and experience missing in the discussion. Someone who has a lot of experience in busy airspace will find 2 miles of space between two light aircraft with similar approach speeds to be quite normal. Another may not. There are a lot of factors to take into account, part of why it’s not easy to just walk in and get a certificate.....
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I think that's a great point. From my experience 2 miles of linear pattern distance fits a lot of planes in it! Maybe not so much for folks used to flying airliners.
 
Brad W said:
Except that it's kinda not a good idea.... extending out where you can't make the runway for no good reason
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In some thread or another, I think it was pointed out that final approach is one of the most common places for a mid-air. Considering that on cross-country flights, one can be out of gliding distance from a runway for much longer stretches of time, it seems to me that turning base when one is unsure whether it will create a conflict is the greater risk.
 
Boy, if anyone wants a demonstration of how much confusion there is about right-of-way, all they have to do is read the comments on that YouTube page!
 
Brad W said:
Except that it's kinda not a good idea.... extending out where you can't make the runway for no good reason
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And if I just turn base to final and establish glide slope and the engine quits in the Cherokee Six good chance I'm not making the runway either.

I would have liked to have seen more communication with the Cirrus instead of assuming he's going to slow down. Or assuming he probably won't do what he said he was going to do.

"Cirrus on straight in final, centurian established downwind...you think we can get in ahead so we don't have to extend down wind?"
 
Racerx said:
And if I just turn base to final and establish glide slope and the engine quits in the Cherokee Six good chance I'm not making the runway either.

I would have liked to have seen more communication with the Cirrus instead of assuming he's going to slow down. Or assuming he probably won't do what he said he was going to do.

"Cirrus on straight in final, centurian established downwind...you think we can get in ahead so we don't have to extend down wind?"
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This, this, and more of this.
 
Brad W said:
Except that it's kinda not a good idea.... extending out where you can't make the runway for no good reason
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You can make the runway as long as your engine is running, which it will do 99.999999 . . .% of the time, and your options for safely handling the rare engine failure are far better than your options for being hit from behind.
 
Although I see room for improvement, I don't see a specific safety of flight issue here.

Sometimes the focus must shift from "self announce" to communicate and understand.
 
Gryder... Gryder did an interview with Jason that he posted today. I don't see a link here, so I'll provide one below. I was a Gryder subscriber, but he kept saying he didn't want a lot of subscribers, so I unsubscribed. I got a little tired of the schtick too. The guy has some good ideas even so. But I digress.

Gryder did an interview with Jason, it was kind of gotcha type deal, Jason took it like a man, but I think Gryder made some good points. Rather than me trying to dissect it here, you are going to have to watch it.

The highlights for me is Jason sounds like he went along with putting this video out (the FM version) buy wasn't thrilled. He said that he didn't want it on his youtube because he didn't want his students to think this is proper thing to do (my paraphrase, watch the video for his actual words). I think that statement is telling. Gryder grills him as to what he did was dangerous, and makes a pretty good case. Jason makes some points, but his basis for them didn't really jibe with the video.

Jason took the criticism like a man, I'll give him that, at the end of the day I would have had more respect if he said that what he did wasn't really a great idea. But what ever.

I think it's worth the watch. The interview starts at about 11:50 and ends at 36:44

The Fatal Loss of Viktoria - and the Mid Air Collision Debate. - YouTube
 
eman1200 said:
it doesn't get any easier than this.
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I had a guy in another forum take me to task for talking about doing something like this. He said "unnecessary" communication on CTAF just clogs up the airwaves, position reports are all that is necessary. He did not agree with my point that communication like what @Racerx is exactly what needs to happen, although he may have softened that position later on when others said the same thing. I had lost interest by then. I think the guy is a CFI. My point in bringing this up is that there are people like that flying with us.
 
I saw the Gryder interview. I think he overplayed a weak hand. Jason handled himself well. I agree with Jason, there is nothing wrong with a power-off descent for landing. He was fast and at parking before the other plane could exit the runway.

I think Dan is right more often than he's wrong, and no matter what I enjoy his perspective. I don't agree with him on this one.
 
PaulS said:
I had a guy in another forum take me to task for talking about doing something like this. He said "unnecessary" communication on CTAF just clogs up the airwaves, position reports are all that is necessary. He did not agree with my point that communication like what @Racerx is exactly what needs to happen, although he may have softened that position later on when others said the same thing. I had lost interest by then. I think the guy is a CFI. My point in bringing this up is that there are people like that flying with us.
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eh, my safety will trump his coupl'a precious seconds of airtime 100% of the time.
 
Racerx said:
"Cirrus on straight in final, centurian established downwind...you think we can get in ahead so we don't have to extend down wind?"
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I understand and sort of agree with the intent in that....but I have issue with the of a question.
1) it's not really the cirrus in a position to "grant permission"
& 2) how's the cirrus supposed to know? They are miles apart and wouldn't know if "established on downwind means they are just out of the crosswind turn or if it means they are at the downwind to base turn point

LesGawlik said:
I saw the Gryder interview. I think he overplayed a weak hand. Jason handled himself well. I agree with Jason, there is nothing wrong with a power-off descent for landing. He was fast and at parking before the other plane could exit the runway.

I think Dan is right more often than he's wrong, and no matter what I enjoy his perspective. I don't agree with him on this one.
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I'm with you on this one....he greatly overplayed a weak hand. He makes a good point...and one that Jason agreed with. Better communication would be good. ok done.

What I don't agree with is his pushing the fact to not turn because he didn't have eyeballs on. I'll bet every pilot has been on a collision course with an unseen aircraft many times....and that's ok when there's adequate separation.
and my bigger problem beyond ignoring the more than adequate spacing.... is what would he have had Jason do, extend himself into an less safe low altitude position OUT OF THE PATTERN?

I suppose there's another possibility... dumb and unorthodox and possible dangerous in it's own right..... and that would be to maintain pattern altitude turn a normal base, turn a normal upwind, turn a normal crosswind, and re-join the downwind and try again.
Another choice....a 360 on downwind. Also kinda risky.
so that leaves exit the pattern and try again...all because someone is on a 2-5 mile final???

I learned at an uncontrolled field, and my original instructor drilled me to fly a nice close and tight pattern. As I remember it, pre-solo was 100% cut power abeam the numbers...and I want to say it was no flaps all the way down. The little hairs on my neck have always stood high whenever I get forced into these super wide patterns or when I have to extend the downwind for miles.
 
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