It's busy up there today - take care...

[KCDW]

Beautiful day in the SE. Fantastic visibility for summer. Seemed very busy to me: skies are buzzing and ATCOs of various levels working very hard.

I was up with my daughter, and on the return leg she said - "did you see that one?".

"No, how close?".
"Pretty close".

After discussion, I guess it was about 1/4 mile. So not too bad. Then about 5 mins later - 5 miles out. I made my call:

"Town xxx at 1,500'"

5 seconds later, I hear:

"Town xxx at 1,400'".

Didn't see anything, so climbed immediately (and announced the climb). Moments later, a Warrior (I think) zoomed by a couple of hundred feet below.

For the first time in a long time, I was glad to get home :) .

Take care boys and girls...

[Barnstormer1982]

Looks like your daughter could make a good fighter driver one day! And if its not the AF, Ryanair might want to take her as a human TCAS! :D

[Kolibear]

Strangely enough, I didn't think that it was that busy. Bearing i nmind how good the weather was on saturday compared to the previous week, we had very few movements in the morning at North Weald. (Apart from Mustang, Skyraider, JPs, Hunter and Avenger that is)

The call that got my eyes working was the guy who called up to say he was approaching North Weald at 1500' en route to Thurrock. Which was interesting as I was over Thurrock en route to Norh Weald, albeit at 2000'. And I never saw him either.

The scariest moment was going home on the M25, coming up to Stapleford and watching a 150 sweep over the motorway, followed by a PA-28 and a Tomahawk all on finals. After the Tomahawk lifted off, I looked round the circuit and counted six aircraft in the circuit.

Fortunately, the circuit traffic was progressing more smoothly that the M25 :(