Alum Bay, IOW. 11/06/05

[pilotwolf]

If you were the pilot of the low wing aircraft 'playing' in Alum Bay early yesterday afternoon I thought I d mention the following...

You scared and pi$$ed off a lot of mariners...

I only saw the end of your maneouvere so won't comment on it's suspect legality but from the tone of marine discussions I suspect several will...

Hope you enjoyed the fun.

PW

[Goldryder]

Having lived on the IOW myself for many years, I too have seen such 'play' over at Alum Bay. Seems incredulous that they still get away with it, specially with the proximity of the regionals at Southampton and Bournemouth.

Virtually every visit I made there in about 30 yrs I would see some idiot flying about playing silly buggers.

One day someone will come to grief, and they will probably take some poor sod in a boat out too.

Like some car drivers, I get the feeling sometimes that the cereal companies are putting free driving/flying licences in their packets.

[Send Clowns]

Definitely illegal. I was in the area at 650 feet (Bournemouth QNH, so accurate) oggling the f'ing huge yacht, and that aircraft 'appeared' from the flotilla of boats in the bay, climbing fairly sharply, in a zoom climb, not a small height adjustment, to about 100 feet below me! Then proceeded to cross my path left to right, so apparently wasn't paying any attention to lookout, as I was not far away in an aircraft with fairly visible colour scheme, skylined. The fact I had seen him an estimated 400' below me is on Bournemouth Radar ATC tapes, and my altitude should be on the radar records as well, so if anyone got the reg perhaps something more could be done. The behaviour was a genuine hazard, not least to me with him appearing from a direction I would have least expected. Fortunately my lookout was good.

He then cut across the Needles and headed down the south-west coast of the island, flying over a power boat mototring in the same direction at what looked about 100', although I was at about 1500' by then so cannot tell accurately.

[Goldryder]

Did anyone catch sight of the type of aircraft or colours?

I could ask a few 'friends' of mine who are regular flyers if they saw this maniac yesterday. He may have come out of or going to either Bembridge or Sandown at some point.

[Send Clowns]

4-seater, possibly a PA-28, basically white with some brightly-coloured markings I think - colour scheme was not clear.

[Goldryder]

With a bit of luck someone will be able to trace this fool and hopefully clip his/her wings for a while. That was totally irresponsible behaviour imho.

Shame no-one was able to get a registration or even a partial for the plane, could be alot easier to trace them then, perhaps.

It wouldn't be a local pilot as they know better than to do that sort of silly nonsense, more likely to be a mainlander out for a jolly cos the weather was nice.

[stiknruda]

Jeez - whilst not condoning low level beat ups, you have no idea what he was doing and why he was doing it.

Give the guy a break!

And no, it wasn't me.

[Goldryder]

No disrespect Stik, but unless you have been to Alum Bay, believe me it is not the done thing to be throwing yourself about like this nutter seems to have been doing.

You have 2 sides of the bay with 300ft high cliffs, you have a very large number of pleasure craft and people on the beach, there are two restricted areas not far from there too..namely Bournemouth and Southampton regional airports.

Alum Bay is lethal to be jockeying around like this twit was yesterday. The local lads and lasses know not to ever fly like this over the bay as they know how dangerous it is, this idiot thought it was a game, well if he/she is traced I hope they throw the book at them cos that behaviour is not justified nor is it tolerated.

[bunnywabbit]

I help out in the tower sometimes at Sandown,I am also a commercial pilot.I can personally say that the A/C in question is not based on the Island.The resident pilots on the Island would be banned from the club and that sort of behaviour is not tolerated!

The Island is quite rural, however our connection with aviation is very strong and very professional.

(Islanders,Trilanders,ARV,GKN,Saunders Roe,Bae Systems Etc)

It could have visited either airport on the day,it was not one of us.

[Goldryder]

Added to the risk of hitting the cliffs at the bay, you have the added danger of coming down in one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes too. There is even a possibilty this aircraft was picked up by Solent Coastguard as they fequently do check flights with their helicopter in the area, especially on warmish summery days when the world and his wife are out and about.

Flying like this does not do any pilots any favours, its plain stupidity.

[jayteeto]

Pretty pointless exercise putting this thread on line. All that will happen is a bunch of people (see earlier post above) will say that you cant judge heights, you misread your altimeter and that ATC tapes with altitude readouts were wrong. You will be told that you don't know his reasons and people may even be rude to you. Sarcasm over and my real comments:
If you had been on the ground and reported this on PPrune you would have been abused, as many have been in the past. As you have accurate information about his height, at last there is some proof this does happen. Maybe in the future we can give people a little bit more respect when they report antisocial behaviour. We all love flying and I don't get off by whinging about others, its just that I actually care what non aviators think about us.

[Send Clowns]

Stiknruda

I am a commercial pilot and flight instructor. This pilot was not in any urgent or emergency situation. The weather was beautifully clear, with light turbulence. There was no conceivable reason for being over a very crowded area of sea at below 250'!

He put himself in a situation that endangered at least 20 vessels in the bay and my aircraft, which had priority hence my assumption that he failed to see me. He then climbed to cross the Needles and descended the other side to about 100', although by then complying with Rule 5 being away from vessels until he raced a speed boat. Although I admit I cannot accurately judge his height for that one it seemed extremely low, and on previous behaviour we can assume he was still at 100' without risking doing him much injustice.

If anyone does suggest I misread my altitude, I renewed my IR the day before, and do not misread altimeters, and was specifically noting the altitude both on the altimeter and by judgement with the land (I know the Needles area extremely well, having over 500 hours instructional experience from Bournemouth) to keep myself both safe and legal.

[Goldryder]

Its a damn shame we can't get a registration, or partial one for this jockey. Could soon trace the flightplan back to base..although come to think of it, someone this daft probably filed an incomplete flightplan anyway.

I'm sorry but I keep thinking what the result would have been had he collided with you SC, or got tangled in mast rigging or whatever. The results of foolhardy people can be horrendous in the extreme. He/she may not have realised the gravity of what they were doing yesterday but even that is no excuse for sheer bad airmanship imo.

He got lucky yesterday, next time he might not be so.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Not being there I can't comment on whether the flight was illegal or not. Those who were there and want to pursue things further will need to provide the authorities with credible evidence which will allow a prosecution.

But flight below 500' is not necessarily illegal as some often assume. You would need to do some trigonometry involving the aircrafts height and horizontal distance from the 'object' to ensure his Minimum Separation Distance (hypotenuse) was less than 500'. How far was this aircraft laterally from any object, structure, or person ??

climbing fairly sharply, in a zoom climb, not a small height adjustment, to about 100 feet below me! Then proceeded to cross my path left to right, so apparently wasn't paying any attention to lookout, as I was not far away in an aircraft with fairly visible colour scheme, skylined.

This is an assumption on your part of course. Perhaps he saw you and was content to pass 100' below you keeping you in sight. Hence 'see and avoid' was complied with. Under VFR there is no minimum separation requirement. Some pilots are happy with very small separation (gliders in thermals for example), whilst others seem to get twitchy if 'airliner type' separations are not adhered to.

As always with these emotive threads, there is more grey than black and white.

[pilotwolf]

I had no intention of pursuing it further myself as I said I only saw the end of the manouvere - I was busy in the wheelhouse of one of the boats in the bay so was at ASL... I looked up as just as he applied power for the climb - I seriously thought that we would be fishing him out of the bay.

Send Clowns pretty much sums up what happened and as the cliffs there are around 300 feet the legality of this is fairly clear due to his steep climb away - there was at least a dozen if not 2 dozen boats anchored or pottering in the bay - some with very influential 'passengers' on board not forgetting the largish numbers of people on the beach and those at the Alum Bay attraction on top of the cliffs - he was well within 500 feet of many of them. There were also some official aircraft about the area within 10 or 15 minutes so maybe they also spotted him?

I posted in the hope that the idiot will read the thread and maybe think twice before doing something so stupid again when he considers how many more people who have been turned against GA.

PW

[Send Clowns]

PPRuNe Radar

I realise that, but it was not relevant to the case as the bay was so full of boats. It is vey popular anyway as an anchorage, but there was a "super yacht" (huge thing, the type of vessel with a helicopter landing deck) in the bay, and this seemed to draw the crowds. I could see at the very least 20 boats of 20' plus at anchor, I am sure there smaller vessels such as tenders. Alum Bay (http://tinyurl.com/9vz73) is not large for such a flotilla!

The only way this individual could possibly have avoided overflying any of these craft which were in a rough circle about 1/3 of a mile across would be by some fantastic manoeuvring, which even if possible would itself have been extremely dangerous at low level and therefore illegal on other counts! I actually judge, backed by over a thousand hours, some legally at 200' and below, that the minimum he could have overflown within 500' is 5 or 6 vessels. I further would judge that to get into the position in which I first saw the aircraft without any dangerous low-level steep turns would have been to fly almost over the coast - the coast of a tourist trap on a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon!

In my expereince I was as close as I judged was safe to the boats.

The spacing was sufficient, you are quite right, but he could not predict my movements or guarantee that separation. Around that area there are often manoeuvring aircraft, due to sightseeing around the Needles, so everyone keeps good spacing to avoid new contacts. He turned into potential conflict, had I turned a little differently and descended only a little. He cannot have known I had seen him, as I had made no indication and he was below me, against a crowded backdrop with his aircraft not having a particularly visible colour scheme. Had I turned towards his path and descended he had no space in which to safely manoeuvre to avoid me, being far too close to the cliffs by the Needles. If he saw me then he infringed another rule by endangering my aircraft!

Advice for anyone inteding to see the Needles - keep your eyes peeled! There are 2 flying clubs at Bournemouth and 2 smaller RTFs, and that is a popular destination for trial lessons from all of them. It's also a popular waypoint onwards into the island or from the island as a quick bit of sightseeing, and passers by visit too. It can be very busy with VFR traffic, usually between 1500 and 2000 feet.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Thanks SC,

A lot more info there which points towards poor airmanship and possible ANO breaches :ok: just a shame it is so hard to prove sometimes where blatant endangering takes place (I make no judgement in this case) :(

Today I witnessed a ferry pilot, who having been warned of a live high seas firing exercise associated with a large scale seaborne exercise active up to 40,000' (air to air gunnery, surface to air gunnery, and surface to surface gunnery involving a large number of ships, drones, towed targets, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft), elected to fly straight through the lot anyway causing all sorts of mayhem to the flotilla for about 100 miles. NOTAMs available, briefing available, as well as ATC warning him on the frequency, but presumably since he'd have to fly a bit of an extra distance (and maybe for fuel reasons) he decided to do it anyway. Whilst not illegal from an airspace point of view since it remained Class G airspace at his level, would he have been pleased to have been shot down but well within his legal rights if a 4.5 Inch shell or a hail of Goalkeeper projectiles ruined his day ?? Perhaps one day he'll find fame in the Darwin Awards .... ironic perhaps (geographically anyway) as it was an Ozzy aircraft ;)

[nouseforaname]

I know the Alum bay area very well from boating and flying around there. I have seen planes dipping down toward the water (like 20ft) and then going off again. I thought it looked quite cool actually.

To be honest with you now I think that unless this guy was really coming close to people in their boats then he was just having a laugh and you straight and level flyers who are afraid to get a kick out of flying like that should keep to yourselves.

If he was coming THAT close why did no one get his reg.?

[LowNSlow]

As an aside, Goldryder why would a flight plan, incomplete or otherwise, have been filed unless he/she had just flown in from France?

[jayteeto]

It took a while, but they are starting to appear as I said in my earlier post. No doubts about the risk and illegality, they still condone. :(

[Goldryder]

Flightplans were always done from Cranfield on cross countries etc, and seeing as that was the normal procedure there, its therefore reasonable to think the same would occur at all other UK airfields when off on a jolly somewhere. Even if the jolly was from Cranfield to Wellesbourne Mountford for one of their bacon sarnies, a flightplan was asked for.

[Laundryman]

I did all my PPL training out of Cranfield and most of my flying since. I have never been asked for a flight plan, if I knew I was going to land away then I would say so when asking for Taxi clearance but that was it.

[Goldryder]

OK so times have changed a bit then from the old Rogers Aviation days. But back then..late 70's/early-mid 80's...it was the done thing or the CFI had guts and balls for garters.

Anyway, the pilot/prat might have come over from the other side of the channel, you never know. Afterall the Izzle of Widget is a favourite hopping off to point from France etc. So the possibility of a flightplan being in place is still a valid one.

[Send Clowns]

You'r right, JT

nouseforaname

Who said we are "straight and level flyers"? The fact that I try to avoid flying level when it is safe to do so that gives me more experience to say what is safe and what dangerous. I have a fair amount of experience flying aerobatics and formation, and low level to 100', in everything from a Cessna 150 to a Yak-52 and an AS-350. This pilot was messing about when it was not safe!

The reason I didn't get his reg was that I had no idea what he would do next, so flying close to him would not have been safe. I also had a paying customer on board, for whom I had a duty of care. The only known pilot on the surface was PilotWolf, who only looked up when the aircraft was already climbing away. Not sure I would expect non-pilots to check the reg instinctively.

[LowNSlow]

Flight plans are only a legal requirement when crossing an international border if flying VFR. Commonsense might prompt one to file if flying over inhospitable territory but filing a plight plan for a bimble to Wellesbourne is a bit of overkill IMHO. I would have take umbrage if told that it was compulsory.

On the original topic, it sounds like the offending pilot was a bit of a prat to put it mildly. I have spent many a happy hour bimbling around the IoW and never saw anything more hazardous than people going the "wrong" way around (clockwise - line feature on the right of the aircraft instead of the left) so that their passengers could have a better view of the coastline. Oh, there was that time the red Hunter came whizzing past me at low level on the approach to Sandown but I'm sure he saw me silhouetted against the sky in my bright yellow Cub.....

[BoeingMEL]

Maybe this is the same idiot who insists on beating-up the centre of Ross on Wye most sunny weekends. Steep turns, opening and closing throttle at lowish level etc. Totally spoiled an open-air music event at the Hope and Anchor last Saturday (June 11th 3.00pm). Quite a few ready with binoculars and video-cams for his next shabby flying display. (Staverton or Shobdon boy suspected) bm

[Fuji Abound]

It would seem quite clear from this thread the actions of this pilot were not only a danger to himself but to others. That is unacceptable.

Do you report him?

How often do we see people behaving as irresponsibly in cars? Do you take their registration number and report them to the police? They are as much a danger to other road users.

At my local golf club (which is on steeply rising ground) aircraft below 500 feet are not uncommon. I dont report them.

This would seem to be in a different category. Being provocative I wonder how many of us, if they had the registration number, would make a formal complaint to the CAA and in what other circumstances a complaint is valid.

[jayteeto]

I just spotted the 'straight and level flyer' comment. My fixed wing aeros sequence is pretty good thesedays. I can even make myself feel sick!! Mind you, I am only cleared to operate my helicopter down to 300' these days, so the old low level skills have gone.
nouseforaname.... there is a time and place for everything. If you want to fly low in the right place, then do it, it is in the rules and regs. My problem is with people who endanger others for kicks. I still enjoy flying and want others to do the same...... in safety.

[nouseforaname]

ok fair enough maybe a lot of you aren't straight and level flyers. Take that back. And I didn't see the guy so I'm not in a position to comment really.