Hmm, so now I am youthful and inexperienced by reading Eurocontrol newsletters that say to FOLLOW THE RA, ageeing with them and feeling we are on the same wavelength. As well, the BFU in their final report recommends "never manouver in the opposite sense to an RA(directly from the report that deals with your scenario). I am youthfully on the same wavelength with them despite my inexperience.
I thought about your scenario the other day as I was flying along at a high altitude. There was 180° opposite traffic almost on our track that we knew was several thousand feet below us. We saw their contrail well before we crossed paths. For much of the time their contrail appeared above us. It was definitely above the horizon until it got much closer and became obvious that it was much below us. Sort of like the cloud tops that often appear to be at our level initially the pass by down below. Your scenario has the option to visually manouver to avoid the visually aquired traffic which is opposite to the RA that has alerted you to a strong collision potential. As I have previously said, visual illusions, especially at night can make it extremely difficult to accurately assess the trajectory of another aircraft in this situation.
In your scenario, which is the accident scenario, it is safer to climb. Why, because we know how extremely dangerous it is to descend as proven by the European collision and other near collisions and it is unlikely that the TCAS is wrong. The other guy will likely be descending as well because he is well trained. Manouvering visually may make things worse in many cases (especially at high speeds, high altitude and night). How easy is it to manouver visually around a rotating beacon and a set of nav lights closing in at 500 miles per hour, possibly against a backgound of many ground lights). Is this your actual experience and non-youthfulness speaking on how easy it would have been for the 154 to descend and visually manouver around the 757).
How dangerous is it to climb or maintain level flight(assuming that there really is an aircraft out there that you can't see)? I don't know, but I say less dangerous. Why? The big sky theory. The chances of actually hitting that aircraft are still extremely small. ATC is going to calling for an immediate climb or descent if your aircaft will be within 5 miles of each other(or whatever the minimum separation is). TCAS is calling for a manouver when the collision potential is much higher. It is nice to have hours upon end in an office to analyze various scenarios. When you have few seconds to make your decision, certain procedures should already be clear in your mind. Sure, there is always the obscure scenario where acting contrary to the SOP saves the day. But that is a rare day. and it wasn't the Day(or night) over Germany.
That the BFU has no experts on TCAS is not surprising. Safety boards typically bring in outside experts during an investigation.
It is unfortunate to hear that you are close enough to Eurocontrol to be
aware that they were reading this thread yet you "can't be bothered" to attempt to discuss with them your scenario and their recommendations and reasons for their recommendations for your scenario.
In case you happen to find the time, their address, fax and phone number are on their newsletter.
Last edited by punkalouver; 5th December 2007 at 14:57.