Originally Posted by
Rod1
So the pilots of less well equipped aircraft complain that the well equipped aircraft are not looking out of the window, and the pilots with the kit think that pilots without it do not know the rules of the air. What a great world we live in!
I have no problem with you guys playing with your toys, but please do not try to make them compulsory. I like flying for fun and the idea of flying a computer leaves me cold. I assume the flight sim enthusiasts are the people who cannot afford to fly fully equipped aircraft.
The PFA and BMAA fleets combined offer about 5000 aircraft without Transponders, most without radio. The BGA will obviously add to this very considerably. Interesting that the number of people who actually fly into each other is so incredibly small. We would add more to flight safety by spending the money on an extra hour a year on stall/spin awareness than on collision avoidance. Perhaps an hour of basic aerobatics for all PPL’s would reduce the fatality’s more than compulsory transponders?
Rod1
Rod1,
I take great exception to you accusing me and others of playing with toys. I fly for a living, every working day and have done since 1977. I by no means play with toys in the air. I'm interested in keeping myself and my passengers alive, not amused.
I justifiably commented that some flyers don't seem to know the rules of the air because if they HAD seen us, they had taken absolutely no effort to avoid a collision when the rules of the air required THEM to give way to an aircraft converging from the right. I had one such incident recently and was forced to take very positive avoiding action on an aircraft that got extremely close, where he should have given right of way. I filed an AIRPROX (don't usually, but this was very close to a mid-air hit). During the ATC follow up the pilot completely and aggressively denied it could have been him because he saw no other aircraft. We were a little surprised he hadn't seen us....... we nearly chewed his starboard wing off with our rotors as he descended across our nose.