How would you have dealt with this? (airprox)
I'm a low hours student building up hours studying for an NPPL(M) and splitting my time between Membury & Swansea.
Today at Membury I was having a good day & my instructor saw fit to send me solo for a few circuits.
We were using runway 13 (a huge grass strip) and everything was going smoothly, until I turned to finals for the first time.
The circuit height is 800ft, and I carried out my usual lookout before turning towards the runway, when something caught my eye, and I had to do a double take. Another aircraft (a PA-28 possibly) was flying slightly above circuit height, right down the middle of the strip, the wrong way, directly towards me.
I'd already started to descend during the turn luckily; because of the closing speed, they were over and past me long before I'd gathered enough calm to think of noting their tail number, if it had even been possible to do so. Unfortunately I didn't have my go-pro with me. I estimate that there was less than 50 ft separation vertically at the closest point. My instructor saw it from the hangar. I instinctively went nose-down & managed to get it down without any further drama.
At the time I shrugged it off & carried on to complete 3 more circuits before taxying to park. It was only on the drive home that it occurred to me just how close I'd come to doom.
Does this happen a lot? It was at about 1300 BST. Nothing was heard on the traffic frequency & the other plane obviously carried on oblivious.