cowman
Final Approach
This has bugged me since I started venturing outside of my airport's controlled airspace as a student pilot...
Even in the controlled environment of a class D airport while in the pattern and hearing on the radio exactly where to look for traffic those little airplanes are hard to pick out... even the big ones take a while to find and that's when I know almost exactly where in the sky they are supposed to be.
But then when venturing outside of that bubble within 3000'agl they could be anywhere. They could be on a collision course at your altitude. I've seen a few come close. I've been at uncontrolled fields talking to one other aircraft in the pattern with me and seen somebody without a radio swoop in ahead of both of us.... and I've admittedly messed up at uncontrolled fields before by not realizing I'm on the downwind for a different runway than I announced on the radio until flying by the numbers.
But in the pattern we're looking and expecting this stuff to some extent... en route I've had aircraft uncomfortably close to my altitude go shooting by within 1/4 mile or so. I kept thinking in those situations that if they'd really been on a collision course I don't know if I'd have seen it, recognized what was happening, and reacted fast enough.
I've tried to mitigate this.... if I can't get above 3000 agl due to ceilings which has happened a lot lately I try to fly at altitudes like 2250 or 2750... and so on instead of the 500s in hopes less traffic will be there. I get flight following, when going near a field I tune my com2 to that field's CTAF or tower and listen. I invested in a PCAS... which in my experience isn't much help most of the time.
But still none of that guarantees a thing. We're supposed to look out the window... slowly scanning the sky and I do that too but does it really work when 2 little airplanes are closing at a combined 300mph? I dunno.... Are we in reality actually just relying on the fact that the sky is very big and we're very small so the odds of 2 aircraft trying to occupy the same space at the same time is pretty low? I know midair collision are a rare thing... but still it bothers me.
Even in the controlled environment of a class D airport while in the pattern and hearing on the radio exactly where to look for traffic those little airplanes are hard to pick out... even the big ones take a while to find and that's when I know almost exactly where in the sky they are supposed to be.
But then when venturing outside of that bubble within 3000'agl they could be anywhere. They could be on a collision course at your altitude. I've seen a few come close. I've been at uncontrolled fields talking to one other aircraft in the pattern with me and seen somebody without a radio swoop in ahead of both of us.... and I've admittedly messed up at uncontrolled fields before by not realizing I'm on the downwind for a different runway than I announced on the radio until flying by the numbers.
But in the pattern we're looking and expecting this stuff to some extent... en route I've had aircraft uncomfortably close to my altitude go shooting by within 1/4 mile or so. I kept thinking in those situations that if they'd really been on a collision course I don't know if I'd have seen it, recognized what was happening, and reacted fast enough.
I've tried to mitigate this.... if I can't get above 3000 agl due to ceilings which has happened a lot lately I try to fly at altitudes like 2250 or 2750... and so on instead of the 500s in hopes less traffic will be there. I get flight following, when going near a field I tune my com2 to that field's CTAF or tower and listen. I invested in a PCAS... which in my experience isn't much help most of the time.
But still none of that guarantees a thing. We're supposed to look out the window... slowly scanning the sky and I do that too but does it really work when 2 little airplanes are closing at a combined 300mph? I dunno.... Are we in reality actually just relying on the fact that the sky is very big and we're very small so the odds of 2 aircraft trying to occupy the same space at the same time is pretty low? I know midair collision are a rare thing... but still it bothers me.