gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
What do you all think of this:
Sunday on the way home from Florida I stopped for fuel in Tennessee, had a quick potty break, paid for the fuel and we climbed into the airplane to leave. The weather was barely VFR with a 1200 ft ceiling and a few miles vis so I didn't want to pick up my clearance in the air. I fired up the engines, taxied out, did a quick runnup and called National Clearance delivery on the cellphone for my clearance. They told me that another airplane already had a clearance and I'd have to wait until he was airborne and in contact with ATC. There was a Cessna 210 that had been sitting on the ramp near the fuel pumps and that pilot had begun preflighting when I climbed into the plane. I had talked to him briefly just before that and learned he was headed in the same general direction (destination Springfield IL about 20 miles off my route to Mpls). Being used to calling for clearance on the phone, I never even thought to ask if he already had his clearance but apparently he must have either gotten a fairly lengthy void time or else he went inside and got the clearance as I was taxiing out (I was about 5 minutes from startup to calling FSS and when I was told about the conflict he was still loading his family into the airplane). Since I was blocking the access to the runway I pulled onto the runway, turned around and taxied back to the ramp which was pretty close to that end of the runway. As I got out of the way he had started the engine and was doing a runnup so I tried to contact him on the CTAF but got no response (at this point he had about a minute left on his void time). He then pulled onto the runway and began his takeoff roll so I taxied back to the departure hold short line. About halfway down the runway he pulled the power and taxied off at an intersection. I tried contacting the 210 on the CTAF (I hadn't heard any calls from him on that frequency during the whole episode) and again got no response so I called FSS back and said the other airplane just aborted and asked if I could go and just as the briefer was getting the clearance from ATC the 210 taxied back onto the runway (at the intersection) and departed. I told the briefer that the 210 was in the air and that I could hear him calling in on the Memphis Center frequency. I got my clearance shortly after that and was on my way. Altogether from the time I started engines untill the takeoff about 20 minutes had elapsed. As far as I can tell the 210 began his first launch attempt about when his void time expired and the second and successful attempt a few minutes after that.
It's fairly likely that the 210 pilot tried to hurry when he realized we were in conflict although his rush might have simply been due to the soon to expire clearance void time. In hindsight I sure wish I had queried the pilot on the ground before starting and I suppose I'll do that if something like this ever happens again. As I expected I passed him about halfway to SPI and since I was ready to depart before he even got his engine started there clearly wouldn't have any conflict had I gotten my clearance ahead of him. Perhaps he thought I was departing VFR?
Sunday on the way home from Florida I stopped for fuel in Tennessee, had a quick potty break, paid for the fuel and we climbed into the airplane to leave. The weather was barely VFR with a 1200 ft ceiling and a few miles vis so I didn't want to pick up my clearance in the air. I fired up the engines, taxied out, did a quick runnup and called National Clearance delivery on the cellphone for my clearance. They told me that another airplane already had a clearance and I'd have to wait until he was airborne and in contact with ATC. There was a Cessna 210 that had been sitting on the ramp near the fuel pumps and that pilot had begun preflighting when I climbed into the plane. I had talked to him briefly just before that and learned he was headed in the same general direction (destination Springfield IL about 20 miles off my route to Mpls). Being used to calling for clearance on the phone, I never even thought to ask if he already had his clearance but apparently he must have either gotten a fairly lengthy void time or else he went inside and got the clearance as I was taxiing out (I was about 5 minutes from startup to calling FSS and when I was told about the conflict he was still loading his family into the airplane). Since I was blocking the access to the runway I pulled onto the runway, turned around and taxied back to the ramp which was pretty close to that end of the runway. As I got out of the way he had started the engine and was doing a runnup so I tried to contact him on the CTAF but got no response (at this point he had about a minute left on his void time). He then pulled onto the runway and began his takeoff roll so I taxied back to the departure hold short line. About halfway down the runway he pulled the power and taxied off at an intersection. I tried contacting the 210 on the CTAF (I hadn't heard any calls from him on that frequency during the whole episode) and again got no response so I called FSS back and said the other airplane just aborted and asked if I could go and just as the briefer was getting the clearance from ATC the 210 taxied back onto the runway (at the intersection) and departed. I told the briefer that the 210 was in the air and that I could hear him calling in on the Memphis Center frequency. I got my clearance shortly after that and was on my way. Altogether from the time I started engines untill the takeoff about 20 minutes had elapsed. As far as I can tell the 210 began his first launch attempt about when his void time expired and the second and successful attempt a few minutes after that.
It's fairly likely that the 210 pilot tried to hurry when he realized we were in conflict although his rush might have simply been due to the soon to expire clearance void time. In hindsight I sure wish I had queried the pilot on the ground before starting and I suppose I'll do that if something like this ever happens again. As I expected I passed him about halfway to SPI and since I was ready to depart before he even got his engine started there clearly wouldn't have any conflict had I gotten my clearance ahead of him. Perhaps he thought I was departing VFR?
