HASELL check?

[omcaree]

Evening all,
Today I took three friends from uni flying with me (after just recently been checked out on a C182), all in all the flight was pretty uneventful, with one exception. Without trying to slag anyone off, heres there story....

Departed east midlands to the north, headed off towards TNT, then a quick hop over to Alton Towers for some photos. Decided to head around east mids zone to re-enter from the south (so as to fly over Loughborough and get some pics of the uni). While heading south, down the west side of zone, approximately 0.5nm west of the Blithfield lake/reservoir, at about 2100ft I was surprised to see "something" infront of me. This is how i first percieved it, as "something" but within a second or two i realised it was an aircraft (Taildragger, not certain of type) going vertically, no more than 300m ahead and slightly to the left of me. I instinctively rolled right, by which time I was abeam him/her, about 400ft below, travelling in more or less the same direction. I got myself well out of the way and kept my eye on it for the next minute or so while it continued doing aerobatics. Then headed back to east mids.

Now as I said, I'm not trying to slag anyone off, but here are my questions. Firstly, what happened to Lookout? from my point of view the manouver which i almost got involved in was a roll off the top of a loop, which means that initially the other aircraft would have been on a reciprocal heading, and perhaps 300-500ft below me. Is it not sensible that before pulling up into you a loop you first lookout where you are intending to go?
Secondly, I was only at 2100ft (anticipating staying under the east mids CTA), so that means that this guy was doing aerobatics at around 2000ft. Now I have little aerobatic experiance but what I have done was always aimed to be recovered by 3000ft, that means starting at around 5000ft.

Ah well, thats it, rant over. I'd be interested in other peoples comments. I don't think i'm in a position to make any formal complaints as I dont have any details of the aircraft, so I guess thats the end of that, like i said, a pretty uneventful flight :}

Cheers

Owen

[WorkingHard]

OMCAREE - happens more than it should really but we are in quite crowded skies and occasionaly despite the checks the other a/c is not seen. The worst I had was at about 2000ft below a cloud base of about 2300 in receipt of RIS from local RAF unit when RAF piston trainer dropped through the cloud INVERTED about 200 yard away at 12 o'clock. Instinctive training takes over!

[jezbowman]

Who were you talking to at the time? East Mids or Tatenhill?

[omcaree]

Talking to east mids at the time, didn't feel like changing frequencies as we had intercom/radio problems for a while (didn't last, but didn't want to agrivate it)

[DFC]

You and the other pilot are equally responsible for avoiding collision. The see and avoid principle applies.

You saw, you avoided..........the system works horray!

See and avoid is just that you avoid collision..........nowhere does it say how much you will miss by.

If you felt that there was any element of danger/risk cause by the proximity of the other aircraft you should report an Airprox and let the experts debate the situation and come up with an opinion. That is what they are there for. If there was no danger then what is this about?

As for height to complete aeros........everyone has their personal minima........some display pilots can operate to 50ft above surface (subject to legal requirements).

Regards,

DFC

[stiknruda]

omcaree,

If the "aerobatting" pilot was practicing a routine or sequence, either for display purposes or competition, then he will in all probability have done his HASELL check prior to the start of the routine.

If the ROTT was halfway through his sequence, his HASELL check could be as much as 6 or 7 minutes old, at that time you could have been 14 miles away!

He will have ben looking out, but if he was flying a biplane or a high wing aircraft, it is not unrealistic for him to have not spotted you by virtue of the fact that you are higher and the top wing blots out quite a lot of sky! If he was a mid-wing or low-wing then quite likely he failed to spot you as he was working on where to place the maneouver relative to a ground feature.

As he pulled to the vertical, then he will have been looking at his wing tips, his view "forward" would have been obstructed by the belly of his own aircraft. As he started to pull beyond the vertical, he still would have been unable to see you.

His best chance of seeing you in the circumstance as I understand that you have described, is when he rolled wings level at the top of the half-loop. Even then, his aircraft is v e r y slow and he may be working so hard to stop it stalling that he didn't pick you up. He is also concentrating like mad on hitting the entry gates (speed/height/power) for his next maneouver.

As he is slow here, the chances are that his next maneouver is either a descending one or a turning one and it may be that he did see you but realised that he'd not be contending for the same airspace at the same time.

As regards heights for aerobatics, the only law is rule 5! Most BAeA competition sequences use the layer between several hundred feet and about two thousand six hundred, the majority of it done around 1500' - IF you are flying something potent.

IF he was transponder equipped, he should have been squawking 7004, the aerobatic conspicuity code, which whatever service you were working should have alerted you to. However, transponders and their use is not mandatory. I practice in class G and generally set the avionics master to OFF. No radio, no transponder.

It's a big sky up there and we've all got to share it. What you did sounds sensible.

You wrote, "I got myself well out of the way and kept my eye on it for the next minute or so while it continued doing aerobatics."

I'll bet it looked like great fun and I'll even wager that you turned to your chums and said something along the lines of, "I'd like to do that/ I'm going to learn to to do that/ I've done a bit of aeros and it is the best fun that you can have dressed!"

Am I wrong ;)

Stik

[Newark_Anagram]

Omcaree,

Trying checking out the aircraft page on the Tatenhill Aviation website. They have a taildragger that they use for aeros, normally to the west of their zone.


N_A

[Darbo]

Remember from when your Instructor used to harp on, "Lookout, Attitude, Instruments".

Or:

LOOKOUT 80% of the time

Attitude 15% of the time

Instruments 5% of the time

[Final 3 Greens]

If there was no danger then what is this about? DFC

What this is all about is a relatively new pilot trying to put an experience into context.

We all feel this way when we have our first experience of being up close and personal and I see no problem with Owen sharing it.

Filing an airprox seems a bit silly in these circumstances and others have put the matter in perspective.

[stiknruda]

"We all feel this way when we have our first experience of being up close and personal and I see no problem with Owen sharing it."

I agree!

I've had my share of, "WTF is he doing there!"

I was nice and high one day - up where the air is rare and I was showing somebody how to barrel roll (a maneouver not best practiced near the ground!). During the inverted portion, I had a good look around and there 1 000' beneath me was a brace of Stearmans. This was in the open FIR so no drama - but how they hadn't seen me as I was silhouetted against a light blue sky, I'll never know!

However, what really grips me is when the airspace has been NOTAMED. In the National Aeros championship a couple of years ago, I was doing my stuff in the box, when the Chief Judge radioed "Break, break - traffic inside the box!" I shoved everything into the left hand corner until I could see the traffic. Just nano-seconds ago I'd been where he was -there fat, dumb and happy was a S76 helicopter right above the runway that was box centre! The driver - for he was no pilot, had his head down like he was reading, he was wearing an open necked, short sleeved white shirt without epaullettes and had two pens in his top right hand pocket. One might have been a pencil! If I'd only had guns fitted!

A previous year, a different contest site, duly Notammed! Out of a loop, full smash, pull to the vertical at 180mph and up we go - a little bit of right rudder as we slow down and when the ASI needle goes off the clock and the little bit of string on the wing starts going slack - full left rudder, fwd and right stick. Just as I pivotted at the top, not more than 100meters away is the T tail of a glider!

It hadn't been seen by anyone on the ground and it scared the sh1t out of me!!

[TheKentishFledgling]

If you're half way through a comp sequence stik, and you break due to traffic that's not been seen from the ground (as in your above example) do you get to fly the sequence again?

tKF

[stiknruda]

tKf - the rules state that you break (3 wing wags) then reposition yourself, further three wing wags and then fly the next maneouver - in effect you lose out on the one that was botched.

When you land you can appeal, but as you know I'm not very appealing!:D

As the glider was seen departing the box, I could have appealed to refly the whole sequence - as it was I didn't break and just carried on. It does affect ones concentration, though!

(I've just landed my first flight in 4 1/2 weeks because of wet wx and soggy grass - aeroplane is filthy!).

Stik

[MikeeB]

I thought you could restart from the point you had to break with no loss of points in the case of a "break break break" coming over the radio.

Even if you can't, it's better to loose some points than have a mid air !!!

Quite a few people practice north of my house; south of Breighton on the Hull-Selby railway line... the amount of times I see one aircraft doing aero's and another bimble along the track of the railway line on the way to (or back from) look at the Humber Bridge is frightning.

It's difficult to spot other aircraft at the best of times IMO, so when you doing aero's it add's to the work load.

Not sure what the answer is, albeit I try get a FIS, but the problem with that is you can get so much RT traffic you can't focus on the Aero's.

[ShyTorque]

One might have been a pencil!

HB or BB, Stik? Can't have been that close then! :E

[d192049d]

Omcaree....

Whilst I agree with the "should be at 5000 feet, you will of course have noticed that there is class A @ 4500, so with a 500 foot buffer entry was probably around 4000 as a maximum, which all begs the question was it the most ideal place to conduct aeros in the first place?

That said and and as was pointed out, you had the opportunity to take avoiding action precisley because you were doing what you were always taught, look out.

M

[atsa2ltcc]

Dont really see why you are getting worked up. We all know how hard it is to see other aircraft.

Even if you do find out who the other aircraft is, there is nothing you can do because he wasnt doing anything wrong. Its his sky as much as yours or mine in the open FIR.

Just keep looking.