Mr Smith,
apropos Mr Wiley’s perhaps overly emotive comment, could I suggest you ask one of your doubtlessly many contacts within the aviation fraternity to organise an observation ride for you in a simulator? Sit and observe a crew handling an engine failure at V1+1 and see how much time (and aircraft performance) they have to “look out and avoid each other”, especially around the 500’ mark. It’s no different – (and maybe even more busy for a single pilot) - for the crew of a light twin in the same situation.
Surprises can come from very unexpected areas when flying close to the ground. Some years ago, I found myself in a situation not unlike the one Mr Smith complained about in starting this thread. I was flying a Bell 205 - (for all intents and purposes, just a bigger version of the 206 Mr Smith flew around the world in) – between Nowra and Williamtown on a sunny Summer Sunday afternoon, and was held by Sydney ATC at Cronulla because they were using 16 at Mascot.
After ten minutes orbiting, with no apparent end of the hold in sight, I told the controller we didn’t have fuel to hold much longer. He asked me if I was willing to accept a non-standard (and possibly not exactly within the rules) clearance – “not above 100 feet until clear of the 16 flight path”. We carefully considered this non standard clearance – for about a nanosecond. ATC was actually giving three 20-something red-blooded Australian males permission to beetle along North Cronulla beach, packed with babes in all states of undress,
not above100 feet?
We took it – and as we approached the northern end of the beach, (fortuitously if not surprisingly), every one of us paying great attention to our “lookout”, a bloke launched himself in a hang glider from a dune immediately in front of us. One minute clear skies and a clear flight path, and a second later, the underside plan form of a hang glider, (looking very much like Batman’s searchlight being shone on the clouds), filling my windscreen.
I don’t know who got the bigger fright – I broke right, out to sea and almost certainly blew my altitude restriction - (I wasn’t looking at my altimeter!) - and I’m not sure what the poor bastard in the hang glider did. We missed – literally by a whisker – and I sincerely hope my rotor wash didn’t leave him in too bad a state to regain some semblance of control.
Not exactly the same, I know, but I think this incident might show the fallacy of Mr Smith’s comment
…what are the odds of an IFR aircraft having an engine failure on take off from 12 and crossing the coast at 500 feet at exactly the same time that a VFR aircraft in the lane is at the same place?
. Sometimes two aircraft do find themselves in the same piece of sky at exactly the same time, and if the crew of one of those aircraft is dealing with the first minute or two of an engine failure procedure, they will definitely not be in a position to “look out and avoid each other”.