Good point "Fox",
The recriminations expressed by most of us just reflect our frustration at the needless loss of very highly valued life, not just in the incident under discussion but generally in the highish (?)number of such tragedies and near misses we see in aviation. Read the AIIB reports and we can count our lucky stars that statistics up in the blue generally favour us all. When the chemistry goes wrong, it goes wrong in spades.
I fly from a farm strip in Scotland, when I am home, and could have found myself in exactly the flight situation/parameters as the Cessna Pilot on many occasions, albeit for very different reasons. If I had clanged into an FJ or vice versa, I wonder how the report would read and just how blame would be apportioned, not that myself or the other pilot would be too concerned I suspect ?
I love sharing my air space with Hawks, Tornados and yes, even Jaguars (!) and confess to a childish high on the Ooooh, Aaah Squeak rating whenever I get up close and personal enough to see them at first hand doing what they do best, but not so close that my a
e is munching on my seat cushion. Also, even as a pure VFR pilot, my airmanship is tested on occasions by lots of other light aircraft doing what they do best too. See and avoid has it's limitations but good airmanship does work.
Now, as for Douglas Bader, reading "Reach for the Sky" at the age of about nine was the reason I always wanted to fly aeroplanes and I am sure many others of my generation saw him as a perfect role model despite (or because of ?) his bluff single mindedness and strength of character. I also watched Brian Milton's "Microlight Odyssey" and although I am sure we would end up punching each other's lights out, I saw so much of that strength of character in him too so good on him ! Maybe aviators are of a common ilk whatever their background, and that's why so much of the debate on the forum ends up a in a slagging session - like minds ??
