Originally Posted by
Squawk7700
What I would like to know is if you pull up behind /near someone you know or don’t know, what distance is the legal minimum for separation?
Back in the day before 150 pages were simplified into a few thousand, the 'basic rule' was that an aircraft in the air was not to be operated:
[I]n closer proximity to another aircraft than 600 metres horizontally and 500 feet vertically.
That was in oh-so-complicated
CAR 163.
My 'rule of thumb' was to treat another aircraft like a cloud below 5,000' AMSL.
It seems now that the rule is: don't collide.
It's funny watching the cycle of these things go from prescriptive rule to outcomes-based rule. Fuel management is in the prescriptive phase of the cycle; getting close to other aircraft is in the outcomes-based phase.
Meanwhile the accident/incident rate remains pretty constant.