Near Miss

The longer the final, the higher the risk of conflict with downwind aircraft turning base in front of you. Long finals due require a higher awareness level. And that is regardless of whether it is a controlled or uncontrolled field.
 
Agreed on keeping your head on a swivel, and while I was scanning (as was my CFI) the Cessna descended from traffic patter (1,100 feet) and was obscured by our right wing. I only caught sight of the Cessna before my CFI since I was in the left seat. There was no physical way the instructor could have seen the Cessna until it was directly ahead of us.

Regardless, high awareness during this high workload period is the lesson learned here. Hope to practice this (without incident) today.
 
rtk11 said:
Agreed on keeping your head on a swivel, and while I was scanning (as was my CFI) the Cessna descended from traffic patter (1,100 feet) and was obscured by our right wing. I only caught sight of the Cessna before my CFI since I was in the left seat. There was no physical way the instructor could have seen the Cessna until it was directly ahead of us.

Regardless, high awareness during this high workload period is the lesson learned here. Hope to practice this (without incident) today.
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I see a lot of guys at our field doing long, sweeping turns from downwind to final, and never seeming to level their wings on the base portion. This could've been the case with the Cessna; it seems that given the situation you describe, he had a much better chance of seeing you than vice versa. Level them wings (unless you're in tight and doing a short approach, and say so on the radio), and take a look around!
 
rtk11 said:
No, I was cleared to land. Cessna was #2 and told to look for a light sport on 3 mile final. Cessna says he was tracking another aircraft, but I don't know which he was following. I was told that I was cleared to land and I repeated and affirmed my clearance.
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you were cleared to land. Was there another aircraft (anywhere) in front of you? That is the only reason I can think of for the 182 to cut in front of you, and say he was following another aircraft.
 
bluerooster said:
Was there another aircraft (anywhere) in front of you? That is the only reason I can think of for the 182 to cut in front of you, and say he was following another aircraft.
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There was another aircraft in front but that aircraft landed at least 2 -3 minutes ahead of me. It is possible that the Cessna pilot saw that aircraft, but the controller's radio call telling the Cessna pilot that he was #2 was after that aircraft had touched down and cleared the runway.
 
Just today, Tower called another aircraft's base while we were on an instrument approach, 20 deg left of extended centerline course. The ensuing pattern put us converging, though not very quickly. We asked for a 360 to get behind the other aircraft.

Tower seems to be screwing up a lot lately. That base needed to be called either sooner or later than it was.
 
Our tower folks are very good at calling out the traffic and if you do not have it in sight they will keep updating you. Along with that is having your own situational of who else is in the pattern and where you should be looking for them.
 
Were either of the aircraft equipped with ADSB?
 
I've had worse. I was on final at KAPC, cleared to land and a Bo overtook me from directly above, missing me by a few feet. Meaning, under ten feet. I felt his wake as he passed. I had some words.
 
MAKG1 said:
The ensuing pattern put us converging, though not very quickly. We asked for a 360 to get behind the other aircraft.
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Good awareness and call, MAKG1. I think we rely upon the tower for separation, but I've learned the lesson to keep aware of traffic myself.

Sac Arrow said:
I've had worse. I was on final at KAPC, cleared to land and a Bo overtook me from directly above, missing me by a few feet. Meaning, under ten feet. I felt his wake as he passed. I had some words.
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I'll bet you did! Glad nothing worse occurred.

With all of these similar reports, I am wondering if ADS-B will help in these situations? It's great to know traffic around you, but during moments of high workload (landing), is it too much to add scanning the GPS / iPad for traffic? I'm guessing not as I would (now) be scanning the sky more vigilantly, so perhaps this becomes part of that scanning process.
 
Glad the near hit did not happen, glad the OP has good vision and reflexes and let's all remember that the guy in the tower can only issue instructions assuming that we all know what the heck we're doing. He is relying on our own visual separation.
Be vigilant and be safe.
Now let's go fly!
 
Good job scanning for traffic. Everyone one of my "events" has occurred during Tower or FF training with a supervisor coming on immediately after the event. New controllers can get "behind" the same as new instrument pilots ... I'm getting better at recognizing and have even orbited recently outside Class C or D until the situation has improved.
 
SkyDog58 said:
The longer the final, the higher the risk of conflict with downwind aircraft turning base in front of you. Long finals due require a higher awareness level. And that is regardless of whether it is a controlled or uncontrolled field.
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Bingo. Long straight in approaches are not part of the normal vfr traffic flow, and are therefor more difficult to detect since planes aren't in the "normal" spots.
 
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