| I have been in the situation where I've been cut up on final, I was passing 500ft at the time and the other guy must have been a few hundred meters ahead and maybe 50-75ft below. He had been advised that he was number 2 to me, obviously not seeing me assumed I had already passed him (I didn't see him either, until he turned in front of me, so my lookout was just as bad).
I have also been in the reciprocal situation, flying downwind, number 2 to someone flying a straight in approach, and not visual. Whether it was intentional or not, I don't know, but when I made a call confirming I copied the traffic but was not yet visual, the aircraft in question rocked his wings which instantly drew my attention and so I spotted him.
This experience highlighted to me just how much the human eye is attracted to movement. We were not on a collision course, so he would have slowly moving across my windscreen anyway. But despite looking (or was it glancing?) in the correct direction, I did not see him. Immediately upon rocking his wings I was drawn to his position.
As a result, I make a point of rocking my wings whenever I hear someone being asked to look for me, especially if I'm not yet visual with them. And these experiences, along with tragic events like we had this weekend, continue to reinforce just how important it is to keep my eyes out of the cockpit and on the horizon (and not 3ft in front of my face!). |